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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

more news

House Relentless in Pursuing Contracting Reforms

In the last several weeks, the House has continued its efforts to address federal contracting reform. With bills stalling in the Senate, the House has begun to attach various reform provisions to legislative vehicles that are more likely to be enacted into law this year. Marrying these proposals to the war supplemental bill and the Defense Authorization bill, for example, greatly increases the chances these important reforms will be implemented in 2008.

read in full

War Supplemental Bill Awaits Final House Approval

When Congress returns from its Memorial Day recess, the House will take up the Senate's $250 billion supplemental war spending proposal. After the Senate added on $165 billion for war funding to the House's bill (which contained no money for the wars), it also tacked on some $10 billion in additional non-defense discretionary spending above the House's level of $21.1 billion. Although similar to the House version, the Senate's bill differs in a few key aspects, and the House will have to approve the Senate version or continue negotiating by amending it and passing it back to the upper chamber.

read in full

Collender: Pentagon IG Report Signals Fraud

May 27, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Federal budget sensei Stan Collender reads this WaPo story on the mismanagement of $15 billion Iraqi reconstruction funds and wonders if something more than incompetence isn't at work. The Pentagon's own inspector general confirmed that this lack of concern for procedural safeguards was blatant and commonplace. That makes it hard to come to any conclusion other than that they were ignored rather than expedited or poorly executed.

read in full

DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 27, 2008

May 27, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Housing -- Market Collapse Accelerates: Prices of single-family homes declined a record 14.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier. Year-to-year prices fell less than three percent during the worst drop in the last housing recession, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller national home price index, released this morning.

read in full

Senate Votes to Stop Medicaid Changes

May 23, 2008 by Matthew Madia

Yesterday, the Senate passed an amendment to the war supplemental bill that will put the brakes on several controversial Medicaid regulations. The Bush administration has finalized, or is preparing to finalize, the regulations in an effort to cut federal funding for a variety of Medicaid programs administered by the states.

read in full

DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 23, 2008

May 23, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Supplemental -- Senate OKs $250 Bn in War, Domestic Funds:

read in full

War Supplemental Update: Senate Approves Spending Amendments

May 22, 2008 by Craig Jennings

...lobbing it back over to the House The Senate has approved an amendment to the war supplemental spending bill (HR 2642) that would fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of Bush's presidency. The $165 billion spending measure was adopted 70-26.

read in full

Condition of State Budgets Continue to Decline

May 22, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The state of state budgets continues to deteriorate around the country. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released another update yesterday to their increasingly disturbing analysis, which now shows that 31 states are anticipating budget problems in 2009, with 27 projecting a budget shortfall. We continue to reiterate that this is pretty bad news as state budgets are far less flexible than the federal budget and usually are legally prohibited from running a deficit. From the CBPP update: 31 states anticipate budget problems. Of those:

read in full

DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 22, 2008

May 22, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Budget -- Timing of Budget Resolution Vote Uncertain: Due to clerical and constitutional issues involving the farm bill, the FY09 budget resolution may not be brought to a House or Senate vote until after Congress returns in June from the weeklong Memorial Day recess. Of historical note, House passage of the resolution would increase the national debt limit to $10.615 trillion -- that's eleven figures, for the first time.

read in full

House, Senate Set to Approve Budget Resolution

May 22, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The House and Senate are set to vote on the FY 2009 Congressional Budget Resolution today. OMB Watch sent letters of support for the resolution to both the House and Senate Budget Committees yesterday (House letter, Senate letter). The letters highlight the positive (and negative) aspects of the resolution, as well as the recent historical difficulty of enacting a budget resolution during an election year (hasn't happened since 2000).

read in full