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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Congress Fails to Act on Tax Legislation as Clock Winds Down

Congress left town for the month-long August recess having failed four times to act on a popular package of tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of 2008. With only three weeks in session left in September before the door is expected to close on the 110th Congress, and with remaining differences between opposing sides, there is still significant work to be done before $123 billion in tax cuts can become law.

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Approps Update: House Approves First of Twelve

Aug 4, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Action on other next 11 unlikely In rare fit of, umm, action on their constitutionally-mandated duty to provide funding for the federal government, the House of Representatives passed the FY 2009 Militarty Construction-VA appropriations bill. The $72.7 billion measure passed Friday afternoon 409-4.

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Notes from the Economy: Employment

Aug 1, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Jobs data released this morning show that the economy continued to a seven-month trend of shedding jobs. July's bottom-line job-loss number was mitigated by an increase of 25,000 government jobs; private sector employment dropped by 76,000. Since January, the economy has lost 463,000 jobs. The unemployment rate also moved upward from 5.5 percent to 5.7 percent. In the past year, the unemployment rate has rise 1.0 percent as 1.6 million workers have become unemployed. (click to enlarge)

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The Blind Leading the Blinder?

Jul 31, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Yesterday, the Senate voted once again against beginning debate on a package of tax cuts called the "extenders" for the fourth time this year. The vote was 51-43, and will put off any consideration of the legislation until Congress returns from their August recess on September 8.

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Notes from the Economy: GDP

Jul 31, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Commerce Department, via the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), released initial ("advance") second quarter GDP figures and revisions to previous quarters' estimates. BEA reports that in the second quarter of this year, the economy grew at a tepid 1.9 percent annual rate. Economic growth was spurred by the economic stimulus payments from the government and strong exports boosted by the declining value of the dollar.

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FedSpending.org Reaches 10 Million Searches

Jul 30, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

OMB Watch released new federal spending data on contracts and assistance spending on FedSpending.org yesterday. The site now has full spending data for federal contracts from FY 2000 through the first two quarters of FY 2008 and federal assistance data (grants, loans, and related spending) from FY 2000 through the first three quarters of FY 2007. The FedSpending.org database currently contains over $18.7 trillion in federal spending dating back to FY 2000. This update also made minor site improvements, including added advanced search functionality and bugs fixes.

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Waxman Asks Bloch to Step Down

Jul 30, 2008 by Craig Jennings

House Committee on Oversight Government Reform chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) has written a letter to Office of Special Council chief Scott Bloch asking him to resign.

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FedSpending.org Reaches 10 Millionth Search; Additional Data Now Available

WASHINGTON, July 29, 2008—In June 2008, the groundbreaking FedSpending.org website reached another milestone — the site saw its 10 millionth search by a person since its launch in October 2006. In that time, FedSpending.org has grown to process more than 1 million searches from approximately 400,000 unique visitors each month. On July 1, Alexa.com ranked FedSpending.org 32,259 in traffic among websites on the Internet.

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Senate Republicans Remain Mighty Stubborn

Jul 29, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed a motion to proceed to a package of tax cuts commonly called the "extenders" for the third time this year. Senate Republicans have blocked consideration of the proposal twice before, insisting that the Senate continue to debate an energy market speculation bill until lawmakers add something dealing with gas prices. While it isn't clear if the Senate will reach the 60 votes necessary to begin debating the bill (the vote is this afternoon), it is certain that time is running out.

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Senators Ask SecDef Gates: WTF?

Jul 29, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John Tester (D-MT), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) have sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to formally investigate why the Army relived the Defense Contract Audit Agency of its duty to audit the Army's largest Iraq reconstruction contract.

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