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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GAO's Walker Hammers Congress on Tax Cuts

Nov 2, 2005 by Adam Hughes*

During an event entitled "The Future America Can't Afford" last Monday, U.S. Comptroller General David Walker continued his harsh criticism of Congress' poor stewardship of the government's fiscal health. The event was sponsored by the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, and the National Press Foundation. Walker opened the event by urging Congress to reconsider the extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts in light of the current fiscal environment. "We can’t afford to make all the tax cuts permanent,” Walker said. He also supported the reinstatement of true pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules and an automatic disclosure of the long-term costs of proposed spending and tax legislation in order to ensure an honest and transparent debate in Congress. These are both excellent ideas and should have been in place long ago in Congress. Luckily for the Senate, they will have the opportunity to enact those very budget control measures this week as Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Kent Conrad (D-ND) has offered an amendment to the budget reconciliation that would reinstitute true PAYGO rules. These rules were rejected by the narrowest of margins this past March when Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) offered them as an amendment to the original budget resolution agreement.

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Conferees Get To Work On Remaining Spending Bills

Nov 2, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Although it is the intention of Senate leaders to finish work on the spending bills as well as other must-pass legislation by Nov. 18 (the date they are slated to recess as well as the date the continuing resolution expires), it remains to be seen whether or not this is possible. Progress continues though, with lawmakers saying they expect action soon on a number of final conference reports. Late in the day yesterday conferees completed work on the $20.9 billion Foreign Operations spending bill. The House and Senate will vote on the measure by the end of this week. Lawmakers are also were hopeful that conferees on the Energy and Water spending bill would agree upon a funding level for the Army Corps of Engineers soon in order for a final bill to be voted on before Nov. 4. Conferees on the Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs and the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce appropriations bills are expected to be named soon. Finally, Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) told reporters that conferees on the Defense bill plan to meet early this friday to hopefully agree on a measure that would permit lawmakers to sign off soon on the massive bill and get needed funding to the Pentagon by mid-November.

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Cracks Continue to Appear in House GOP Caucus

Nov 2, 2005 by Adam Hughes*

More the a dozen Republican members of the moderate "Tuesday Group" met last night with Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA), who was attempting to assuage their concerns about the upcoming reconciliation bill that will enact a new round of tax cuts. Some Republican aides and many moderate Republicans in the House have continued to question both the policy of cutting taxes with the ongoing budget pressures of war and Hurricane Katrina, and the politics of doing so while simultaneously cutting funding for programs supporting poor Americans. The House Republican caucus is holding a special 4-hour retreat this afternoon to discuss tensions between moderates and radical members of the Republican Study Committee - who are pushing for much more drastic spending cuts than was originally agreed to in the budget resolution earlier this year. As GOP leaders in the House continue to attempt to hold their caucus together, the White House has issued a veto threat to the compromise package developed by the Senate Finance Committee for their budget reconciliation bill. Senior administration aides have stated they will urge the President to veto the budget bill if it eliminates a regional "stabilization" fund that provides incentives for private health plans to offer Medicare prescription drug benefits in rural areas. The Senate Finance Committee eliminated the so-called slush fund in order to distributing the required $10 billion in cuts over both Medicare and Medicaid. Finance Committee Chairman Grassley said it was the only way to win the necessary approval from all the committee Republicans. In both the House and the Senate, the obstacles continue to pile up in front of the reconciliation bills this year.

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President Bush Requests Emergency Funds for Bird Flu

Nov 2, 2005 by Adam Hughes*

Yesterday, President Bush unveiled a strategy to combat the threat of an avian flu pandemic, calling for $7.1 billion in emergency spending over the next three years to stockpile reserves of medicines and to move forward with the development of a new vaccine. Bush delivered a speech at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. The Senate has already included an additional $8 billion for combating a possible outbreak of the avian flu in the FY06 HHS-Labor Appropriations bill. The House has yet to approve additional funding but is expected to before the congressional session ends later this year. The only possible stumbling block in the House is there have been calls to offset the additional spending with more cuts elsewhere in the budget. White House News Release of President's Plan

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Watcher: November 2, 2005

Nov 2, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Federal Budget

Service Cuts for the Poor to Finance Tax Cuts for the Rich
Congress' Reconciliation Work Crowds Out Appropriations
Congress Remains Out of Step With Public in Hurricane Relief Efforts

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Victory in Colorado

Nov 2, 2005 by Adam Hughes*

Voters in Colorado decided yesterday to pass a temporary suspension of a harmful constitutional amendment (called the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights or TABOR) that had drastically restricted the state's ability to invest in its education and transportation systems since 1992. Since the amendment was passed, the proportion of low-income children who lack health insurance in Colorado rose from 15 percent to 27 percent. Now, the share of low-income individuals in Colorado enrolled in Medicaid is lower than in all but five other states in the nation. Further, in 2000-01, Colorado ranked 49th in expenditures for K-12 education relative to the state’s economy and the state now ranks 48th in its level of taxpayer support of colleges and universities — down from 35th in 1992. This is a major victory for the people of Colorado and a sharp rebuke of "starve the beast" advocates in Colorado and around the country. A number of other states around the country are currently considering instituting similar TABOR amendments, and hopefully the citizens in those states will hear the message from Colorado - just say NO to TABOR. Rocky Mountain News: Voters Approve Temporary Halt to TABOR

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Service Cuts for the Poor to Finance Tax Cuts for the Rich

Over the last two weeks, Congress has forged forward with plans to enact fiscally irresponsible budget and tax reconciliation bills that together will raise the deficit by as much as $35 billion over the next five years. That such a plan ignores new fiscal strains and the public's changed priorities since Hurricane Katrina seems of little consequence to lawmakers. Despite reaching agreement earlier this year on the elements of a dreadfully harmful reconciliation package, the House and Senate are currently crafting even more appalling (and now drastically different) bills.

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House Republicans to Retreat and Regroup?

Nov 1, 2005 by Adam Hughes*

The seemingly endless legal and political trouble the Republican party is currently enduring is having a notable impact on the party's ability to push its agenda in Congress. So desperate is the GOP's situation that tomorrow all 231 House Republican members will take a field trip across the street from the Capitol to the Library of Congress, where they will hold a four-hour meeting on a variety of topics, including trying to build consensus on the upcoming budget reconciliation legislation and even the future of their own leadership. Many observers inside and outside of Congress see the upcoming vote on the budget reconciliation bill in the House as a "make or break" moment for the currently upended GOP leadership structure. In fact, some House Republicans who have pushed for harsher budget cuts in the reconciliation bill have promised to force a leadership election in January if Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-MO) cannot muster the 218 votes necessary to pass the budget cuts. All signs indicate that the retreat tomorrow may be a pivotal moment for the budget reconciliation legislation this year in Congress and for the future of the House GOP leadership. Contact your Representatives today to tell them to stand up to the radical agenda expressed by the budget reconciliation bill in the House and reject the damage it will cause to communities and neighborhoods across the country. It's time for America to move in a new direction.

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Congress' Reconciliation Work Crowds Out Appropriations

A month after the close of Fiscal year 2005, the Senate has finally completed work on all appropriations bills funding discretionary spending in 2006 after wrapping up the Labor/Health and Human Services bill last week. Conference negotiations with the House, however, remain on eight of the 11 spending bills, and time is running out for Congress to complete the appropriations bills before the stark continuing resolution currently funding the federal government expires on Nov. 18.

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Congress Remains Out of Step with Public in Hurricane Relief Efforts

It has been two months since Hurricane Katrina hit and one month since Rita made landfall on the already-ravaged Gulf Coast, yet reverberations continue to be felt not only in Washington, but throughout the country.

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