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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Best Spin Ever: Doan Fought for Accountability!

May 15, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

When I posted at the end of April that the book had closed on Lurita Doan, former head of the General Services Administration, (GSA) apparently I was wrong. She has resurfaced in interviews in GovExec magazine, on Federal News Radio and most recently in this border-line ludicrous column in Federal Computer Week by Neal Fox, the former assistant commissioner of acquisition at the GSA.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 15, 2008

May 15, 2008 by Dana Chasin

War Supplemental -- House and Senate Action Today: The House is scheduled to vote on a $183.7 billion war supplemental spending package today. The Senate Appropriations Committee will begin work on marking up companion legislation also today. but it's unlikely a bill will reach President Bush by the Memorial Day break. House Amendments to Bill.

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Ranks of Contracting Officers Grow, But Not Enough

May 14, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Stephen Barr, who writes the Federal Diary column for the Washington Post, wrote on an interesting topic last week - the growth in federal contracting officers (COs) under President Bush. Barr reported that the number of COs has increased 6.8 percent since President Bush took office, according to federal statistics. Barr also was correct in pointing out that there are concerns among many in Washington (both inside Congress and out) that despite these increases, there are still far too few COs and they receive sub par training and support in doing their jobs.

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Down on the Farm Bill

May 14, 2008 by Dana Chasin

A compromise reached on the farm bill, the House and Senate are expected to vote on final passage as early as today. The bill provides about $289 billion over five years in agriculture spending including nutrition programs and food stamps as well as reauthorization of crop subsidies, conservation programs and a special $3.8 billion trust fund for farmers who lose crops to flood, fire or drought, bumping up the baseline in the aggregate by about $10.3 billion.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 14, 2008

May 14, 2008 by Dana Chasin

PAYGO -- Congress Pays Heed to PAYGO: On three fronts, Congress paid heed to the principles of PAYGO this week, planning to pay for tax cuts and spending increases in the farm bill, the tax extenders package, and (most surprsingly; see below) the supplemental. The farm bill's new tax credits would be paid for, in part, by limiting the net operating loss carryback to $200,000 on businesses' non-agriculture income if they receive commodity payments. The extenders would raise revenue by limiting the deferral of offshore corporate income. That's the plan for now. Here's how PAYGO works.

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House Foreclosure Legislation Meets GOP Ambiguity

Despite a worsening housing crisis across the country, Congress continues to move slowly to enact legislation intended to ease the burden for homeowners. On May 8, the House adopted comprehensive legislation (H.R. 3221) that would seek to reduce foreclosures in the face of an administration veto threat issued just days before. But Senate negotiations between the chair and ranking member of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee have gone on for weeks, with no deal in sight. Most members' eagerness to pass a bill to address the crisis before Memorial Day has thus far been thwarted by key GOP leaders in Congress and some in the Bush administration.

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Congressional Hearings Explore Contracting Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

The Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC), the political arm of the Democrats in the Senate, has been holding a series of investigatory hearings concerning contracting problems during the Iraq war. The series of hearings has been aimed at increasing accountability and oversight of the federal contracting process, particularly related to the reconstruction of Iraq and the increased outsourcing of key military functions during the war.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 13, 2008

May 13, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Taxes -- Rangel Eyeing Extender Offsets: House Ways and Means chair Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) is sifting through potential revenue-raisers to pay for a set of tax credit and deduction extensions expected to hit the House floor by or immediately after Memorial Day. A prime contender: offshore nonqualified deferred compensation, which would defray $23 billion. Less likely: "The carried interest is dead on arrival. Schumer killed the whole thing. I expect that he would do the same in the Senate — in a quiet way, behind the scenes — on Rangel's 'payfor,'" a lobbyist said.

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Time for a Little Emergency Check

May 12, 2008 by Dana Chasin

With Congress and President Bush entering negotiations over the next tranche of war funding, via an emergency supplemental appropriations bill, now is a good time for a little emergency check. As the lead editorial in today's Washington Post, Not an Emergency, points out, "[f]ive years into paying for two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's outrageous that so much of the financing continues to be approved outside the normal budget process, through 'emergency' spending bills that must be passed, must be passed in a hurry..."

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 12, 2008

May 12, 2008 by Dana Chasin

With two weeks before the Memorial Day break, Congress will focus on a few key outstanding fiscal policy issues, foremost among them:

Budget Resolution -- Mind the Cap Gap: Senior congressional budget committee staffers say that if compromise is not reached and a budget resolution passed before the break, Congress will not have an FY09 budget. A small House-Senate discretionary spending cap gap -- about $1.5 billion -- remains to be resolved. OMBW Statement.

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