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

Means-Testing Would Undermine the Medicare Program

President Obama has proposed increasing "means-testing" within the Medicare program as a way to reduce the federal budget deficit; in other words, higher-income seniors would pay more for their health care under the program. This is one of the worst ways to achieve savings through cuts to Medicare and could impose significant costs on middle-income seniors, reduce health care coverage, and undermine political support for the effective program.

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Can the House GOP Live Within Its Own Budget?

Aug 1, 2013 by Nick Schwellenbach

Yesterday, the House of Representatives pulled the annual spending bill that funds the Transportation Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development (THUD Bill) from its calendar because the chance it would be passed by the Republican-controlled House was low.

“The prospects for passing this bill in September are bleak at best, given the vote count on passage that was apparent this afternoon,” House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) said in a statement.

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Social Security and Medicare Benefit Cuts Still Possible in Fall Budget Deal

Jul 30, 2013 by Patrick Lester

Cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits are still being actively considered in the ongoing discussions between Senate Republicans and the Obama administration, according to a new report in Politico.

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Medicare Savings: Cut Benefits to the Elderly or to Big Pharma's Windfall Profits?

Potentially central to any fiscal deal later this year are savings in the government's popular Medicare program that currently helps about 52 million Americans obtain health care. However, the way those savings are achieved will have vastly different consequences for older Americans.

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Tax Reform Should Not Happen Behind Closed Doors

Jul 29, 2013 by Nick Schwellenbach

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-UT) pledged to their colleagues in the Senate earlier this month that their tax reform proposals—namely on tax breaks and loopholes, both of great concern to corporate interests—would be kept secret for 50 years. In contrast, presidential records become accessible to the public after 12 years with certain exceptions.

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White House Veto Threat: House Defense Bill Would Hurt Americans

Jul 23, 2013 by Nick Schwellenbach

The White House issued a veto threat on Monday evening, threatening to torpedo the House’s version of the annual Department of Defense (DoD) appropriations bill (H.R. 2397). House Republicans are proposing defense spending levels that are higher than this years and that break through spending caps established by the Budget Control Act of 2011.

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Senate Talks May Lead to Major Budget Deal this Fall

Jul 19, 2013 by Patrick Lester

At least a dozen Republican senators are regularly meeting with President Obama’s top aides over a possible budget deal that may happen this fall, according to reports in National Journal and Politico.

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Agribusiness Subsidy Cuts Could Save Food Stamps in the Farm Bill

Last week, the House broke with four decades of congressional tradition and narrowly passed a federal Farm Bill, 216-208, without any Democratic support. The break in tradition came when the House stripped nutrition programs – notably food stamps, vital to nearly one in seven struggling Americans – out of the bill after many Republicans voted against an earlier version because they felt it did not cut enough out of the food stamp program.

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Key Transparency Fund Threatened Again in House Budget

A key fund for government transparency programs is once again facing cuts. On July 10, the House Financial Services and General Government appropriations subcommittee approved a bill that provides no funding for the Electronic Government Fund (E-Gov Fund), the driving force behind many recent open government innovations. Instead, the bill merges the E-Gov Fund with another fund and cuts their combined funding level 15 percent from last year.

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Danger Brewing on Tax Reform

Jul 10, 2013 by Patrick Lester

The need for a more progressive tax system is clear. There is ample evidence, including the fact that while corporate profits are at a 60-year high, corporate taxes are near their 60-year low as a percentage of the economy.

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