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

Bush to Veto "Irresponsible and Excessive" Homeland Security Bill

Jun 12, 2007 by Dana Chasin

As H.R. 2638, the $36.3 billion Homeland Security bill, headed for debate on the House floor today, it met with a stern veto threat from the administration because "it includes an irresponsible and excessive level of spending." The administration had requested $34.2 billion. During the six fiscal years of the Bush presidency thus far, six years of GOP control of Congress, the national debt has increased by approximately 3 trillion dollars to almost $9 trillion.

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Who Says Obey Must Sign Off on 32,684 Earmarks (besides Obey)?

Jun 12, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

An article in today's Roll Call ($) appears to resolve the central mystery behind Obey's earmarks antics: why in the world must poor Obey himself review each and every one of this year's 32,684 earmark requests, which in turn forces him to wait to include earmarks in spending bills until they are in conference -- after it's too late to remove any earmarks by amendment?

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Blue Dogs Seek to Seize Fiscal Responsibility Mantle

Jun 12, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

The Washington Post reports today that the Democratis Blue Dog Coalition plans to introduce legislation shortly to impose caps on some spending, enshrine pay-as-you-go rules in federal law and authorize automatic spending cuts to enforce them ... amend the U.S. Constitution to require a balanced budget and to create an array of budget provisions that would focus more attention on what it sees as pork-barrel spending.

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Congress Still Struggling to Settle Earmark Disclosure Procedures

Five months after the House adopted institutional earmark reform rules (H. Res. 6) and the Senate passed statutory requirements governing earmark disclosure (S. 1), confusion reigns in both chambers on how earmark disclosure rules will work and who will administer them. Key members of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees have unilaterally altered the rules in the intervening months, and even with appropriations season upon us, it appears the disclosure rules and their application remain in flux.

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The Benefits of Cultural Exchange

Jun 12, 2007 by Matt Lewis

I just got back from a trip to Spain, and I thought I'd share a few of the things that made it hard to come back. Or rather things that, were they also in America, it would have been much easier to come back.

Fast Trains Spain has very fast trains. Seems like the benefits are pretty self-explanatory, but I just thought I'd mention that being on an extremely fast train is really fun, all practicality aside.
Holidays

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Appropriations Season Kicks Off

Congress shifted into full appropriations mode the week of June 4 as both the House and Senate began subcommittee markups of the twelve individual appropriations bills. As the White House and congressional Democrats continue to trade barbs about potential vetoes of spending bills above President Bush's request, the House is scheduled to consider its first four appropriations bills on the floor this week — all of which exceed the president's requested spending levels.

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BEA Report: 2006 State GDP Rankings

Jun 11, 2007 by Dana Chasin

With a surfeit of sources supplying stories on states' fiscal surpluses this news cycle:

New York Times
Washington Times
Wall Street Journal
Shreveport Times (yes, even Louisiana)

... we thought we'd take a step back and look at comparative gains and losses in state economic productivity, as reported in BEA's report last week on state economic growth. According to the report, the top and bottom five states in per capital real GDP for 2006 are as follows (2003 ranking in parens): 1 Delaware (1) 2 Connecticut (2) 3 Massachusetts (3)

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EITC Reform: Tax Credit Where Credit is Due

Jun 8, 2007 by Dana Chasin

As BNA ($) reports today, the administration is looking at ways to make EITC eligibility easier to figure out. According to the article, the IRS estimates that more than 22 million individuals and families received EITC benefits in the 2005 tax year, yet roughly 25 percent of those eligible do not claim it, due in part to the tax credit's "labyrinthine computations" currently needed to determine eligibility. In an effort to address this problem, the administration proposes to reform EITC eligibility as follows:

allow separated spouses to claim the EITC

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Appropriations Agenda, Part II: The Senate

Jun 8, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Following the flurry of initial appropriations activity in the House this week, the Senate will swing into action next week. [Note: the House and Senate 302(b) allocations for FY 2008 are identical.] The current mark-up schedule in the Senate Appropriations Committee is as follows:

Tuesday, June 12:
- Military Construction-VA ($65 billion; $4 billion over the president's request) -- subcommittee mark-up
- Homeland Security ($36 billion; $2 billion over) -- subcommittee committee mark-up

Thursday, June 14:

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Obey's Earmarks Antics Attracting Attention

Jun 7, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Once again, House Appropriations chair Rep. David Obey has moved the goalpost on earmarks. Last week, Obey announced that he would ignore reforms adopted by the House on Jan. 5 requiring that earmarks and their sponsors be identified in spending bills when they are introduced. Instead, he said he would delay the inclusion of earmarks into spending bills until they are in conference, when they can no longer be removed from the bill by amendment. Yesterday, Obey shifted his position. His new rule:

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