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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CBO Estimates Bush Budget Fails to Balance in 2012

Mar 2, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Administration projections that its FY 2008 federal budget proposal would yield a surplus by FY 2012 were contradicted today by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring of the President's plan. The bottom lines:

the Bush budget will fail to balance in 2012 by $9 billion (see Table 1); CBO's estimate projects $119 billion less in revenues in 2012 than does OMB's
domestic discretionary spending for FY 2008 is scored at $932 billion (Table 4), up from the President's proposed $928.9 cap

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Resolution Tea-Leaf Reading: The Conrad Lexicon

Mar 1, 2007 by Craig Jennings

If you found Senate Budget Committee chair Kent Conrad's comments on the Budget Resolution quoted in our blog yesterday inscrutable, you are not alone. Policy wonks, journalists, lobbyists, industry groups, and aides have spent much of the past two days trying to interpret the meaning of Conrad's promise, "no tax rate increases," given his broader promise of balancing the budget by 2012. So we offer an abridged Conrad Lexicon, to assist in parsing the delphic utterance:

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War Supplemental Mark-Ups "Targeted"

Mar 1, 2007 by Craig Jennings

Coming to a chamber floor near you! CQ($): The House Appropriations Committee has set a "target date" of March 7 to mark up the fiscal 2007 supplemental measure, Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wis., the committee chairman, said Wednesday. The goal is to bring the bill to the floor the following week. The Senate Appropriations Committee intends to mark up its own version of the bill March 20, according to its chairman, Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he would like to have the bill on the floor the last week of March. Last week of March - mark your calendars.

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Democrats to Reach Balanced Budget by Different Means

Feb 28, 2007 by Dana Chasin

The broad outlines of the Democrats' FY 2008 Budget Resolution strategy are beginning to emerge. This much is now clear, per comments this week by House and Senate Budget Committee chairs Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND):

the BR will set total discretionary spending above the $929.8 billion cap proposed by President Bush
it will provide for a balanced buget by FY 2012, by increasing revenues "without any tax rate increases"; instead, it will "broaden the base and keep rates low"

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Children's Health Insurance Program Rundown

Feb 28, 2007 by Matt Lewis

SCHIP, a federal health insurance program for low-income children and pregnant women, has been making news lately (CQ ($) has a good article on it). Here's a quick rundown of what's been happening:

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Budget Resolution Process: Views and Estimates

Feb 27, 2007 by Dana Chasin

This week, the House and Senate authorizing committees start drafting their "Views and Estimates" letters, conveying their positions on the President's FY 2008 budget provisions for the programs that fall under their jurisdiction. The committees must submit their letters to their respective budget committees no later than six weeks after the president's budget release, this year, March 19. The budget committees may, however, request a given authorizing committee to submit its letter by an earlier date.

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War Funding Proposal Evades Critical Questions

Feb 27, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Rep. David Wu and Bruce Ackerman have an interesting proposal on war funding. They want to put a cap on the total amount of funding for the Iraq war. It is Congress's job to restore fiscal balance first, by placing an overall limit on Iraq war expenditures. Congress should limit this president to spending half a trillion dollars on the Iraq war -- and no more.

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Next Step for FY 2008: Budget Resolution

Feb 26, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Over the course of the five-week congressional "work period," a major fiscal focus will be the FY 2008 budget resolution. Below is the current congressional timetable for the budget resolution -- a roadmap Congress uses to plan out the budget for the year setting out changes on entitlement programs and taxes.

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Media Coverage of FedSpending.org v2.0

Feb 23, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

The updated version of FedSpending.org has garnered a few media hits in papers and blogs around the country. Below is a bit of the coverage:

GovExec.com story
San Fransico Examiner editorial
Mark Tapscott's Blog
Sunlight Foundation Blog

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FedSpending v2.0 Goes Live!

Feb 22, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

OMB Watch is pleased to annouce we have just released a new version of FedSpending.org with updated data, new features, and improved navigation. The new site is now live - see it yourself at www.fedspending.org. OMB Watch issued a press release that describes the updates and improvments made to the site, and you can learn and see more about FedSpending v2.0 in the About This Site section, or by exploring the site yourself. We welcome your feedback, comments, and questions about the new website, so please go to the Contact section of FedSpending.org and send us your thoughts.

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