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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Hold On -- No OMB Director 'til September

Aug 2, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Earlier this afternoon, the Senate Budget Committee approved Jim Nussle's nomination to head OMB, 22-1. The lone dissenter was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who announced that he had placed a hold on the nomination because President Bush is completely out of touch with the economic realities facing working families in America. Bush needs to hear the truth, not an echo. He needs a budget director who will make him face the facts, not fan his fantasies.

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Bush: Big on Vetoes, But Why?

Aug 2, 2007 by Craig Jennings

In an op-ed published today at TomPaine.com, our colleague Matt takes the president's veto rhetoric to proverbial woodshed. But the president's position is misleading and out of touch with the American public. First, there is no substance to his attacks on the size of the congressional spending proposals. Congress's fiscal 2008 spending plan exceeds the president's budget slightly regarding social spending—a mere $23 billion—or less than one percent of the entire budget. This difference between their budget and the president's will not open the spending floodgates.

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Odds and Ends

Aug 2, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Rick Perlstein at the Campaign for America's Future explains the political significance of the Minnesota bridge collapse.

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Presidential Prevarication

Aug 2, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Budget Battle Man Stan Busts Bush Bull Below, we had a quick look at the President's speech last week to the American Legislative Exchange Council in Philadelphia.

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Bush's Budget Veto Madness Explained

Aug 2, 2007 by Dana Chasin

An OMBW Dialogue CRAIG: President Bush makes no sense, he's vetoing the Homeland Security spending bill, but not Military Construction (MilCon), the Ag bill, but not Financial Services for budget reasons. What's up with that? DANA: It looks random, but... wait, haven't his veto statements all said that he wants Congress to pass spending bills totaling not a penny over his $933 discretionary spending topline for FY 2008? CRAIG: Sure, but then why is he vetoing some bills where Congress' 302(b) allocations for FY 2008 exceed his February budget request -- but not others?

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American Medical Association Supports House SCHIP Bill

Aug 2, 2007 by Craig Jennings

In statement released yesterday, AMA stated its strong support for the House version of SCHIP expansion: The American Medical Association applauds the members of the U.S. House of Representatives who voted to pass legislation that preserves access to health care for children and seniors. ... By increasing the tobacco tax and eliminating overpayments to insurance companies offering private Medicare plans, Congress has found two appropriate ways to pay for these important national health care priorities.

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Approps Update

Aug 2, 2007 by Craig Jennings

The White House has issued a veto threat over the FY 2008 Agriculture appropriations. I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

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House Passes SCHIP

Aug 2, 2007 by Craig Jennings

By a 225-204 vote, the House of Representatives yesterday approved the renewal and a $50 billion expansion of SCHIP. Also on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed a cloture motion on the Senate version of SCHIP renewal/expansion.

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Budget Summit Ends; No End in Sight for Impasse

Aug 1, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Today's summit meeting on the FY 2008 budget process between President Bush and Congressional leaders has broken and, it's safe to say, the budget process for the year remains as broken as ever. Neither side retreated from its discretionary spending targets and the President showed no sign of backing away from any of his veto threats, leaving open the possibility of a budget showdown or even government shutdown later this year.

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Heritage Seriously Concerned About Fiscal Responsibility- NOT!

Aug 1, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The Heritage Foundation just put out a report on the fiscal responsibility-ness of the Senate's SCHIP bill. It's stupid, but it begins with the fair point that the legislation would sunset, in 2013, the funding increases it would set up.

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