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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more news

WIC Budget Cuts in Omnibus Bill?

Nov 28, 2007 by Matt Lewis

USA Today reports that funding for WIC, a nutrition program that mainly serves pregnant women and infants, may be in jeopardy. Half a million people could be cut from a nutrition program for low-income young children, pregnant women and recent mothers next year because prices and caseloads have risen since President Bush proposed his 2008 budget in February.

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Giving Up On SCHIP?

Nov 27, 2007 by Matt Lewis

CQ (no subscription) is reporting that health care advocates are abandoning the SCHIP funding increase and asking for a one-year extension that maintains the level of service being offered now. Some states may not have enough money to provide insurance to everyone enrolled now if Congress doesn't do something soon.

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Heck of a Job FEMA

Nov 20, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

Last week, the Washington Post reported on more bad news coming out of FEMA. According to a Government Accountability Office report, FEMA has wasted over $30 million in contracts for housing (read: trailers) in the last year. Wow!

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There's Enough Money For The War and Defense Employees

Nov 20, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Via Think Progress, the White House is threatening to furlough Defense Department workers unless Congress funds the war in Iraq with no strings attached for a complete year. They're claiming that they have to move money out of employee compensation to fund the war because the President's war funding request has not been enacted.

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The Real Long-Term Health Care Challenge

Recently, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has been issuing reports challenging conventional thinking about the long-term fiscal problem facing the nation, which holds that it is primarily related to the influence of demographic changes on Social Security and Medicare. These reports draw on the work of researchers and writers who found that the long-term fiscal challenge is almost entirely unrelated to demographics and Social Security, and it is mostly confined to inefficiencies in the private and public health care system.

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Republicans Keep Obstructing Common-Sense Investment Initiatives

Over the past few months, an intransigent president and a conservative coalition in Congress have waylaid a host of common-sense, progressive spending initiatives, including the reauthorization of the nutrition section of the Farm Bill, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and funding for domestic priorities in the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education. Conservative Republicans Barely Sustain President's Labor/HHS Veto

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CQ Out To Lunch On Budget Battles

Nov 19, 2007 by Matt Lewis

CQ reports today that the Democrats' $11 billion compromise on appropriations might be picking up momentum. In evidence, they offer that the President did not mention appropriations in his weekend radio address and something about Sen. Jon Kyl not wanting domestic spending tied to war funding. Color me unconvinced. The more reasonable interpretation is that the Republicans haven't moved from their position of rejecting this compromise.

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Is the Food Exemption Worth It?

Nov 19, 2007 by Craig Jennings

The exemption of food from the state sales tax is lauded and maintained because it mitigates the regressivity of the sales tax. This may in fact be the case, but it's a poorly targeted remediation that is a massive drain on state revenues.

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$11 Billion Cut Not Enough For Republicans

Nov 19, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Before the House Republicans sustained the President's veto of the labor/hhs appropriations bill, Democrats had offered to cut $11 billion out of budget bills, half of the difference between their budget proposal and the President's. Roll Call is reporting that that offer has been rejected. House Republicans are rejecting a compromise offer from Democrats that would cut in half their proposed $22 billion increase to President Bush's budget, but it's unclear how long GOP leaders will be able to keep getting their Members to walk the plank against popular spending bills.

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Splitting the Difference or Just Hairs?

Nov 16, 2007 by Craig Jennings

CongressDaily PM today ($): Democrats are proposing to cut $10.6 billion from their initial proposed spending bills. Even with the cuts, security-related spending Bush requested would rise 11 percent above the current year, while non-security domestic spending Democrats want would grow about 3 percent. Under the new allocations, Democrats would increase spending across most government agencies by $10.9 billion above last year; by contrast, the Defense bill Bush signed this week increases non-emergency funding by $39.7 billion from last year.

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