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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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- April 8, 2008

Apr 8, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Budget Resolution -- Blue Dogs Say PAYGO or No-Go: In an April 4 letter to the House and Senate Budget Committee Chairs and ranking members, 26 deficit-hawk Blue Dog Democrats said that a budget resolution must "include deficit-neutral AMT relief through reconciliation language and any stimulus package be fully offset [or it] will meet our firm opposition on the House Floor." Given the five-vote margin of victory for the House resolution last month, a defection by 26 Democrats would almost certainly doom the prospects for an FY 2009 budget resolution.

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Wash Post Opines on Future of Entitlements

Apr 7, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The Washington Post wrote their lead editorial yesterday on the future of entitlement programs. The editorial once again lumps Social Security, a relatively healthy program, with Medicare and Medicaid, which face more serious funding issues not because they are entitlement programs, but because of the rapidly growing cost of health care in both the public and private sectors.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- April 7, 2008

Apr 7, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Economy -- Jobless Reports Boost Odds for Stimulus 2.0: Following last week's report that payrolls declined by 80,000 in March, bringing the cumulative three-month loss to 232,000, and the unemployment rate surged upward, to 5.1 percent from 4.8 percent, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on April 4: "Today's disturbing unemployment numbers, combined with [Federal Reserve] Chairman [Ben] Bernanke's recession warning... compels the President to work with Congress on a second stimulus package...

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Frank's Housing Bill Is Good Policy, Good Politics

Apr 4, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Dana has a piece up at TPM Café in which he outlines a set of criteria - political and substantive - that qualify a housing bill as effective and viable.

It cannot involve "massive government intervention," or it risks the threat of veto by President Bush
It must pay for itself or include offsetting tax hikes or spending cuts to comply with the pay-as-you-go
(PAYGO) constraints Congress has imposed on itself
It cannot involve a bailout of either financial institutions or investors who have lent to homeowners or to

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IBM Suspension Lifted

Apr 4, 2008 by Craig Jennings

POGO's Scott Amey flags this update on the government's suspension of IBM from obtaining federal contracts: WASHINGTON (AP) — The government has lifted a week-old ban that prevented IBM from getting new federal contracts in an exchange for an agreement from the company to drop its protest of an $84 million Environmental Protection Agency contract it lost last year. ...

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The Employment Situation

Apr 4, 2008 by Craig Jennings

While a loss of 80,000 jobs is troubling, an even more disturbing trend in the private job market continues. In March, the private sector shed 98,000 jobs, marking the fourth consecutive month to see private-sector losses. (click on image to enlarge) Dean Baker at Center for Economic and Policy Research has a good write-up of the situation:

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- April 4, 2008

Apr 4, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Economy -- 240,000 jobs lost 1st Qtr. of 2008: The Labor Department announced today that the economy shed 80,000 jobs in March, the biggest monthly decline in five years; the total job-loss figure for the first quarter of the year was about 240,000. Unemployment jumped from 4.8 percent last month to 5.1 percent. Story.

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Don't Judge Pig Book by its Cover

Apr 3, 2008 by Dana Chasin

On the one hand, the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) Pig Book is a useful service providing a full accounting of earmarks adopted by Congress and stuck in the FY 2008 budget. Among the leading fun facts, the FY2008 budget includes :

11,610 earmark projects worth $17.2 billion
337% increase over the 2,658 projects in fiscal year 2007
30% increase over the $13.2 billion in fiscal year 2007

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Quotation of the Day

Apr 3, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Classic Senate... Easy to reach compromises when you agree to everyone's tax cut without paying for them. There is no need to make choices or decide whether the tax cut is worthwhile if we don't have to pay for it. -- Anonymous House Democratic leadership aide, regarding Senate housing stimulus package

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- April 3, 2008

Apr 3, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Housing/Stimulus -- Senate Readies Its Package: Senate leadership announced late yesterday that a compromise had been reached between Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) on a stimulus package nominally targeted to the nation's slumping housing sector. Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee chief Sen. Max Baucus unveiled a tax title to the housing bill. Cost: $10.8 bill. Offsets: none.

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