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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: Emergency War Spending Requests Lack Detail, Procurement Portion Increasing

When asked by Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) to analyze the massive growth in war spending, CBO could point to general expensing areas of supplemental budget requests, but because of lack of detail in such requests, it could not provide a detailed accounting. However, CBO did find a slew of expenses, like acquiring next-generation aircraft, that the Defense Department would undertake in the absence of the wars. When federal agencies request funding during the normal appropriations process, they submit what are known as "budget justification" documents, which explain an agency's budget request in quite some detail (see e.g., the Education Dept.'s FY 2008 budget request justification materials). However, the emergency supplemental requests made by the administration for war spending do not include similarly detailed documents. Although the detail in such documents improved in 2007, specific data on war spending for earlier years is simply not available, severely limiting the ability of CBO to analyze and report on war spending. The supplemental budget requests submitted between 2002 and 2006 contained little detailed information on war expenses. DoD provided detailed justification materials for its regular budget request but did not submit similarly detailed information for its war-related expenses. In February 2007, DoD expanded the quantity of justification material submitted with its requests for war funding. In addition to providing more informative summary material, it prepared budget justification materials for each appropriation, similar to those provided for the regular budget....[B]ecause similarly detailed information is not available for 2005 or for earlier years, a detailed analysis of the changing patterns of spending is impossible.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REVIEW -- 02-14-08

Budget -- Down on the Farm: House Agriculture Chair Collin Peterson (D-MN) and the panel's ranking member, Robert W. Goodlatte (R-VA) have sent to conference a farm bill that cuts out commodity price supports for such crops corn, wheat and rice in the ninth year of the bill's ten-year provisions... Farmers who earn more than $900,000 a year and make most of their income from farming would be ineligible for farm payments... The White House praised the bill but Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) recommended it be "thrown in the trash barrel."

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REVIEW -- 02-13-08

Budget -- Rough Patch for AMT?: Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) said yesterday that he'd probably leave an AMT patch provision (est. cost $75 bn.) out of budget reconciliation instructions this year in order to facilitate both PAYGO compliance with a patch and passage of a budget... By putting tax reconciliation instructions that could be used for an AMT patch into budget resolution, a later bill to patch the AMT with offsets would require only 51 votes to pass, rather than the usual 60 votes required to avoid a filibuster.

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The Limited Effects of Fiscal Stimulus

Writing in the New York Times, Robert Reich explains how a minor and temporary boost to workers' incomes is tempered by the long-term trend in income inequality.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REVIEW -- 02-12-08

Budget: Funding is Fundamental -- Bush's budget for FY09 recommends ending 103 domestic social programs (listed here), among them the $25 million (read: tiny) Reading is Fundamental (RIF) program... Treasury's explanation: "The White House doesn't quarrel with the program's goals. But it says the funds should be awarded under a competitive, merit-based process rather than automatically given to one non-profit group." OK, but do you need to kill the program first?

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Mentioning the Unmentionable

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Jesse Drucker notes($) that the full cost of the recently-passed economic stimulus package is slightly underestimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation's score: A round of business tax cuts in Congress's economic-stimulus package passed Thursday will cost nearly triple the official government estimate, tax experts said.

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Bush Budget Continues to Disappoint

President Bush's FY 2009 budget continues to receive poor reviews into its second week. We reviewed a number of those reactions last week (see our summary posts here and here), and below are some additional disappointed reviews:
  • The Daily Tar Heel: Budget May Cut Student Loans
  • BlackAmericaWeb: Reading Is Fundamental's Program Target of Major Cuts
  • Center for American Progress: Bush's Budget Cuts Aid to Displaced Workers
  • The Buffalo News: Bush Budget Disappoints
  • Washington Post: No Funds in Bush Budget For Troop-Benefits Plan
  • WP's Stephen Barr: Social Security, DHS Say Bush's Budget Falls Short

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REVIEW -- 02-11-08

Budget --

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    FY09 Budget Process -- There You Go Again

    President Bush will try one last time to distract from his fiscal legacy of the enormous and enduring additional $3.5 trillion in national debt incurred on his watch by provoking another veto-spitball fight with Congress over something like $10-20 billion in discretionary spending in FY09. This morning, Bush said: Last week, I proposed a budget that terminates or substantially reduces 151 wasteful or bloated programs. Those programs total more than $18 billion. And if Congress sends me appropriations bills that exceed the reasonable limits I have set, I will veto the bills.

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    DAILY FISCAL POLICY REVIEW

    SUDDENLY, STIMULUS: Congress must have surprised even itself yesterday, moving with alacrity to complete work on and adopt the biggest stimulus package ever and send it to the president. Of course, the package wasn't paid for so there wasn't much heavy lifting. The legislative process took less than a month...

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    Resources & Research

    Living in the Shadow of Danger: Poverty, Race, and Unequal Chemical Facility Hazards

    People of color and people living in poverty, especially poor children of color, are significantly more likely...

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    A Tale of Two Retirements: One for CEOs and One for the Rest of Us

    The 100 largest CEO retirement funds are worth a combined $4.9 billion, equal to the entire retirement account savings of 41 percent of American fam...

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