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

Unemployment Insurance Study

Mar 18, 2004 by Adam Hughes*

A new CBO study finds that unemployment insurance is important in maintianing family income after a job-loss, and "the program has succeeded in preventing temporary poverty for a significant fraction of long-term UI recipients."

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Americans For a Fair Estate Tax Statement on the Budget

Mar 10, 2004 by Guest Blogger

The Senate is currently debating a 5-year budget plan that accelerates repeal of the estate tax to 2009. Here is the statement from Americans for a Fair Estate Tax on the proposed budget.

Statement on Senate Action on Estate Tax in FY2005 Budget

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OMB Watch Makes Available Detailed Budget Data

Over the past two weeks, OMB Watch has posted detailed breakdowns of budgetary data.

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Economy and Jobs Watch: Labor Market Still Struggling

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced last week that employment grew by only 21,000 jobs in February, and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.6 percent.

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Bad Budget Rule Changes Could Still be Proposed

The Senate budget being debated this week includes only a two-year cap on appropriations, and continues Senate pay-go rules that apply to both entitlement increases and tax cuts. However, concern over other changes in budget rules remains.

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No Budget is Better than the Senate Budget

The budget resolution approved last week by the Senate Budget Committee has nothing good to recommend it. It will hand more tax breaks to the extremely wealthy while slashing assistance to low-income working families and children. Funds for education, housing, the environment and a host of other services that benefit ordinary Americans will also be cut. Ironically, in spite of all these cuts, the committee?s resolution will increase -- not reduce -- the deficit.

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Senate's Budget

Mar 5, 2004 by Guest Blogger

The Senate Budget Committee has reported out a budget which includes includes $80.6 billion in tax cuts which would have reconciliation protection. Of this, around 3 billion is for repeal of the estate tax in 2009. The low cost figure is likely due to the fact that most of the revenue effects would take place outside of the 5 year budget window in 2010. The remaining $77 billion is used for the 3 "middle class" tax cuts - child credit, 10% bracket, and marriage penalty.

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Cost of Estate Tax Repeal

Mar 3, 2004 by Guest Blogger

Acording to the Joint Committee on Taxation, making permanent an estate tax repeal would cost $206 billion over the next ten years.

See x-14-04r.pdf (application/pdf Object)

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CBO Account-level Data on Government Spending, 2005-2014

The 2005 Budget submitted by the president last week contained only partial information for spending over the next 5 years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has since developed estimates of costs contained in the president's FY2005 budget covering the period from 2005 to 2014.

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CBO deficit numbers

Feb 27, 2004 by Guest Blogger

The CBO has released their analysis of the president's budget. They find that the presiden't proposals would add $737 billion to the deficit over ten years.

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