Federal Budget Policy

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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Legistorm Launches Searchable Earmarks Website

Nov 20, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

There's been a lot of buzz in Washington and around the country the last couple of years about earmarks. It's the new four letter word of politics, with practically every Senator and Representative talking publicly about how awful they are. Yet earmarks in and of themselves are really not the problem. It is the process by which they are enacted that is usually where we run into trouble.

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Oversight Coming to a TARP Near You?

Nov 20, 2008 by Craig Jennings

After $290 billion in TARP funds committed, President Bush and the Senate are just now getting around to installing the TARP Inspector General. Working quickly to confirm Bush's choice for Special Inspector General for TARP (SIGTARP), Neil M.

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PAYGO in a Sour Economy

Nov 20, 2008 by Craig Jennings

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) provides us with a teaching moment (BNA [$]):

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Orszag to head up OMB?

Nov 19, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The National Journal has been reporting this week that current Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Peter Orszag is in line to head up the Office of Management and Budget in the upcoming Obama administration. Orszag formerly served as a senior economic adviser during the Clinton administration and held a post in the economics studies program at the Brookings Institution.

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Change We Can Believe In?

Nov 18, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

CQ published an infuriating article ($) this morning that explores Sen. Max Baucus' (D-MT) health care reform proposals, with a particular focus on whether those reforms will be implemented in a budget neutral way. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Monday that he hopes to make sure a health care overhaul proposal he released last week is paid for over a 10-year period. But he left open the possibility that it would not comply with pay-as-you-go budget rules over five years, or perhaps at all.

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TARP Purchases Increasing as Oversight Languishes

As Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson continues to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars in bank equities under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), oversight of the program remains meager. TARP, as created through the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA), gives Paulson wide latitude in selecting firms and individuals to implement the program and equally wide latitude in disbursing the $700 billion in authorized funds. However, with $290 billion already committed, two of three oversight institutions created by EESA have yet to be implemented, signaling that oversight and transparency in TARP are second-tier objectives for Congress and the Treasury Department.

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House Definitely Maybe Returning for Lame-Duck Session

Nov 12, 2008 by Craig Jennings

CQ Politics:

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Paulson: Troubled Asset Relief Program Will Not Buy Troubled Assets

Nov 12, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Rethinking the crux of the financial markets crisis and its solutions, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced today that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), originally intended to take toxic financial assets off the books of lending institution

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Trust But Verify

Nov 12, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Argh! More bad news about the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the watchdog at the Department of Defense that is supposed to watch out for waste and fraud within the agency's enormous contracting apparatus. DCAA was in the news a lot this summer (see here, here, here, and here) after information surfaced showing the DoD spends too little on contract oversight and interferes with current auditors to restrict the length and scope of investigations. It doesn't look like things have improved much since then.

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Treasury Releases TARP Transaction, First Tranche Reports

Nov 10, 2008 by Craig Jennings

On the Depart of Treasury Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA, AKA TARP) website, the Department has posted, according EESA law, a list of transactions made under TARP. And here they are, all $125 billion* worth of them: