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

Competitive Sourcing Continues to Fail

Nov 24, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report on Friday on the Bush administration's competitive sourcing initiative, which allows the federal government to hold public-private competitions for the right to deliver commercial services for the government (things like janitorial services or food preparation or maintenance). If a private sector bid can show savings of $10 million or more or 10 percent of the cost of providing those services in-house, they win the competition. /p>

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Friendly Advice

Nov 21, 2008 by Craig Jennings

When going to Washington to ask Congress for $25 billion to help you out of jam because your company is going bankrupt, it's probably best to leave the private jet at home.

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Better News for Workers

Nov 20, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Today the Senate approved, by a voice vote, a 7-week extension for unemployment insurance and six more on top of that in states where unemployment is higher than 6 percent. The bill, HR 6867, cleared the House Oct. 3 368-28. The bill now goes to President Bush, who is expected to sign it. Update (Fri., Nov. 21): President Bush has signed the bill into law.

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Legistorm Launches Searchable Earmarks Website

Nov 20, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

There's been a lot of buzz in Washington and around the country the last couple of years about earmarks. It's the new four letter word of politics, with practically every Senator and Representative talking publicly about how awful they are. Yet earmarks in and of themselves are really not the problem. It is the process by which they are enacted that is usually where we run into trouble.

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Oversight Coming to a TARP Near You?

Nov 20, 2008 by Craig Jennings

After $290 billion in TARP funds committed, President Bush and the Senate are just now getting around to installing the TARP Inspector General. Working quickly to confirm Bush's choice for Special Inspector General for TARP (SIGTARP), Neil M.

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PAYGO in a Sour Economy

Nov 20, 2008 by Craig Jennings

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) provides us with a teaching moment (BNA [$]):

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Orszag to head up OMB?

Nov 19, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The National Journal has been reporting this week that current Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Peter Orszag is in line to head up the Office of Management and Budget in the upcoming Obama administration. Orszag formerly served as a senior economic adviser during the Clinton administration and held a post in the economics studies program at the Brookings Institution.

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Change We Can Believe In?

Nov 18, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

CQ published an infuriating article ($) this morning that explores Sen. Max Baucus' (D-MT) health care reform proposals, with a particular focus on whether those reforms will be implemented in a budget neutral way. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Monday that he hopes to make sure a health care overhaul proposal he released last week is paid for over a 10-year period. But he left open the possibility that it would not comply with pay-as-you-go budget rules over five years, or perhaps at all.

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TARP Purchases Increasing as Oversight Languishes

As Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson continues to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars in bank equities under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), oversight of the program remains meager. TARP, as created through the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA), gives Paulson wide latitude in selecting firms and individuals to implement the program and equally wide latitude in disbursing the $700 billion in authorized funds. However, with $290 billion already committed, two of three oversight institutions created by EESA have yet to be implemented, signaling that oversight and transparency in TARP are second-tier objectives for Congress and the Treasury Department.

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Unemployment Insurance in Need of Overhaul

As the anticipated severity of the recession increases and unemployment estimates for 2009 reach as high as eight percent, Congress is under increased pressure to enact an extension of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, perhaps as early as the current lame-duck session. Yet a broader overhaul of the UI program is needed to improve this important safety-net program for American workers.

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