Revenue & Spending

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

IRS Commish Losing Mind?

Oct 27, 2006 by Matt Lewis

This is just ridiculous (emph. mine). The commissioner of internal revenue has ordered his agency to delay collecting back taxes from Hurricane Katrina victims until after the Nov. 7 elections and the holiday season, saying he did so in part to avoid negative publicity. The commissioner, Mark W. Everson, who has close ties to the White House, said in an interview that postponing collections until after the midterm elections, along with postponing notices to people who failed to file tax returns, was a routine effort to avoid casting the Internal Revenue Service in a bad light.

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New State Reports on Budget Cuts

Oct 26, 2006 by Matt Lewis

The Emergency Campaign For America's Priorities (ECAP) has just posted a series of reports on issues related to workers, education, and children. The reports cover how much federal investment in these areas has dropped over the last 2 years, and the impact that these funding cuts have made in 27 states. Take a look and see how your homestate has been doing under this Congress.

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States Continue to Lead on Wages Where Feds Have Failed

Oct 26, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

While congressional Democrats have crowed about raising the minimum wage as a top priority should there be a shift in power in Congress, states continue to blaze past the federal government and enact increases in their respective state minimum wages.

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A Robust Lame-Duck: Fair or Fowl?

Oct 26, 2006 by Dana Chasin

Per Congressional Quarterly, the latest speculation from House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) on what to expect in the post-election lame-duck session, the swan song for the 109th Congress: Boehner continues to expect that the lame-duck session will extend well into December. And, while he was unwilling to predict a possible closing date, he nodded positively when asked whether the session could extend until the week before Christmas, as was the case last year.

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The American Dream -- an Impossible Dream?

Oct 25, 2006 by Dana Chasin

A few days ago, CNN released a fascinating poll on how many Americans feel that the American dream is beyond their reach. According to the poll, it's a majority now, 54 percent. The poll also reveals that 74 percent of Americans regard Congress as "out of touch" and 79 percent feel that big business has too much influence over Bush administrattion policies.

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The Disturbing "Efficiencies" of the Free Market

Oct 25, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

On Monday, we criticized a very misguided commentary on the Heritage Foundation blog about how wasteful federal employees and the federal government are - a common, yet incorrect theme of theirs. The Heritage Solution: outsource government functions to the private sector and everything will be ok. The theory is that competative forces in the free market will drive down prices, and the government services will be provided for less. How could things go wrong?

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Midterm Elections: The Wall Street Perspective

Oct 24, 2006 by Dana Chasin

With the advent of a potential overhaul of Congress at the hands of voters on November 7, we are witnessing some hysterical predictions by a highly-placed Executive Branch official of "an immense tax increase and the economy would sustain a major hit.'' But, as this Bloomberg article published today reports, "Stock-market investors aren't buying it." Why isn't Wall Street in the grip of fear that a Democratic Congress would unilaterally roll back the Bush tax cuts and move aggressively to regulate the economy?

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Watcher: October 24, 2006

Oct 24, 2006 by Matt Lewis

Treasury Reports Quarter-Trillion Dollar Deficit; President Still Obscures Fiscal Problems A Fiscal Policy Review of the 109th Congress Citizens for Tax Justice Give Congress, President Failing Marks on Tax Policy

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More Budget Gridlock Next Year?

Oct 24, 2006 by Matt Lewis

The National Journal's Stan Collender ($$) is feeling pessimistic about next year's budget. Key graf: If Republicans are in the majority, fiscal and social conservatives will have to work with moderates who will fear a lame-duck president and a weakened leadership even less than they did this year. That will make it very hard to get majority support for any of the key budget, tax and spending issues.

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