Federal Tax 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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Letting the Bush Tax Cuts Expire: Ahead of our Time(s)

Jan 29, 2007 by Dana Chasin

The lead editorial in the much-read Sunday New York Times yesterday, The Budget Illusion, cites last week's CBO projections of a cumulative deficit of $2.9 trillion to $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years "if, as Mr. Bush wishes, the tax cuts are extended beyond their scheduled expiration in 2010." It concludes: Mr. Bush’s tax cuts should largely be allowed to expire. Facing that truth is not a fiscal challenge, it’s a political one. Mr. Bush will not meet it. But a future president and Congress will have to.

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Senate Wends its Way on Wage Bill

Jan 26, 2007 by Dana Chasin

The Senate has been making no concessions to the shortness of life in its deliberations on S. 2, the minimum wage bill.

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Stop, Tax Foundation, Please Stop

Jan 26, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The Tax Foundation's blog has an aggravating but typical post up. The basic claim is that spending has risen faster than tax revenues over the last 6 years. Therefore, it's spending that's out of balance, not revenues. So, implicitly, spending should be reduced to eliminate the deficit.

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Congress Resumes Action on IRS Privatization

Jan 26, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Congressional Democrats have taken steps to end the IRS program that privatizes tax collection, GovExec reports today. The House bill (H.R. 695), offered by Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Steve Rothman, D-N.J., would repeal the authority Congress granted the IRS in 2004 to outsource some tax debt collections. The Senate measure, from Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., orders the suspension of an IRS program to use private collectors, and would block funds for the initiative.

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Bush's Fiscal Rhetoric Falls Short

Jan 24, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

In case you missed it this morning, OMB Watch released a statement responding to the president's State of the Union address last night. In short, we were unimpressed with Bush's empty rhetoric about fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets. Bush's Fiscal Policy Rhetoric Continues to Fall Short

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PayGo on TPM Cafe

Jan 23, 2007 by Matt Lewis

An interesting discussion on PayGo has popped up on TPM Cafe. Amitai Etzioni wrote we shouldn't go by PayGo because it'll only lead to surpluses that Republicans will squander on their well-heeled constituents. Point well taken. Paul Krugman recently made a similar point, though less in terms of PayGo and more in terms of the deficit. But that's not the end of the story. Greg Anrig at TPM Cafe has an interesting response to Etzioni's post. He thinks PayGo is a good way to define Democrats as responsible and competent and Republicans as crazy.

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Tax Gap Hearing: Consensus and Contention

Jan 23, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The Senate Budget Committee held a hearing today on the $345 billion tax gap- or the difference between what people owe the federal government and what they pay. Overall, there was consensus that a) the tax gap does exist in huge proportions, b) we must do something about it and c) we must try to minimize doing harm to compliant taxpayers when we address the tax gap.

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The Fiscal Impact of House 100 Hours Agenda

On Jan. 18, the House Democrats succeeded in passing the final piece of their six-part "100 hours" agenda. The combined fiscal impact of the bills — which implement 9/11 Commission recommendations, close energy tax loopholes and more — is significant: the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated $21.1 billion in savings and revenue over the next ten years if the bills are signed into law. H.R. 1: Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007

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Making PAYGO Go a Long Way

Jan 18, 2007 by Dana Chasin

In his blog below, my colleague Craig casts a favorable light on the offsets Sen. Max Baucus uses to bring his $8 billion small business tax cut into PAYGO compliance, calling them "progressive" in net affect.

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PAYGO at Work

Jan 18, 2007 by Craig Jennings

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) wants to attach an $8 billion small business tax cut provision to a Senate minimum wage hike bill, because, as he claims, a "clean" minimum wage bill would not sustain a Republican filibuster.

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