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

Contractors to Face Increased Oversight in 2007

Nov 28, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

Government contractors are preparing for additional oversight, tighter regulations and responsibility rules, and perhaps even a downturn in the size of future contracts due to the Democrats takeover of Congress in 2007, according to The Washington Post.

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Medicaid Costs Stablizing

Nov 28, 2006 by Matt Lewis

USA Today reported yesterday that Medicaid costs have been decreasing over the last year, and editorializes (opinionates?) on the subject today. Like other social welfare programs, Medicaid has been a victim of its own success. It will cost taxpayers $300 billion this year (about 70% of the Pentagon's budget) and serves 56 million poor Americans. It has been the fastest-growing expense for states over the past decade, threatening to break budgets and force service cuts. Until now.

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The $1.1 Trillion Jobs Creation Program

Nov 27, 2006 by Craig Jennings

The Center for American Progress points out that President Bush is responsible for perhaps the most expensive jobs program ever: Based on the administration’s estimate that its tax cuts should be credited for creating approximately one-quarter of all new jobs...we can attribute 1.3 million jobs out of the 5.0 million newly created jobs since the start of the recovery in late 2001 to the White House’s tax cuts...According to estimates by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax cuts during the same time period totaled $1.1 trillion.

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GAO Issues Oversight Suggestions

Nov 27, 2006 by Matt Lewis

GAO Chief David Walker has sent Congressional leaders a list of what he thinks ought to be the oversight and investigatory priorities for the 110th Congress, in addition to suggestions for budget process reforms he recently issued. The list covers 36 topics, including:

Addressing contracting problems
Overhauling the Department of Defense's wasteful business practices
Modernizing federal employee compensations systems

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Watcher: November 21, 2006

Nov 22, 2006 by Matt Lewis

Same Old Congress, Same Old Budgetary Gridlock: Long-Term CR Likely in December Threat of Estate Tax Rollback Finished for 2006

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A Cut in Every Program and A Hole in Every Stocking

Nov 21, 2006 by Matt Lewis

Now that a program-slashing continuing resolution is nearly a sure thing, agency administrators (and not advocates or politicians, mind you) are speaking out. From CongressDaily PM ($):

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Same Old Congress, Same Old Budgetary Gridlock: Long-Term CR Likely in December

Congress has made very little progress toward being able to finally adjourn for the year, leaving most of their appropriations work, a set of popular tax breaks, and funding problems in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program still unaddressed. With time running out, Congress will probably pass another extension of a budget-cutting continuing resolution, once again neglecting its duty to enact the annual spending bills.

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Threat of Estate Tax Rollback Finished for 2006

Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) admitted last week the Senate was unlikely to pass any permanent reduction to the estate tax in 2006, despite repeated attempts and rhetorical ultimatums from Frist and his allies.

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Continuing the Resolution ... into the New Year

Nov 21, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

Congressional Quarterly ($) reports today that GOP leaders have decided to enact a long-term continuing resolution when they return to session in December, effectively pushing off their failed budget work onto the new Democratic Congress in 2007. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's spokesman, tacitly acknowledging the amount of homework heaped on Democrats' desks, said,

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House Dems Plan Loong Sloow Rolll-Out of Ethics Package

Nov 21, 2006 by Dana Chasin

We have long anticipated the follow-up to the GOP's earmarks-disclosure rule, which expires at the end of the year. Now, the House Democrats have finally settled on a strategy for rolling out their ethics and budget process reform package in January. The pieces of the package, including