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

FIRST THINGS FIRST!--Before the Tax Cuts

Are any efforts being made to at least postpone President Bush's phased in tax cuts given the events of September 11, 2001, the costs of the war effort, and the economic recession? Sen. Jan Schakowsky is one of the few in Congress who have publicly called for meeting other domestic needs before the tax cuts go into effect. She introduced legislation on October 2, 2001, to do just that.

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Summary of Seattle Discussion Groups

Summary of discussion groups held in Seattle, Burien, Everett, Kirkland, and Renton, Washington, on January 14 and 15, 2002, through the Social Investment Initiative project. These groups talked about domestic priorities at the national, state and local level, the barriers and opportunities that exist today and solutions to the challenges we face, the role of the federal government, and how national, state and local groups might work together over the long term to change the public policy debate.

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Daschle's Speech, Fiscal Responsibility and Tax Cuts

Senate Majority Leader outlined the country's urgent domestic and military priorities and compared the pre-tax cut possibilities for domestic investment with the current post-tax cut reality's "unnecessary fiscal bind," but he did not directly call for a delay in the tax cut as a solution to this fiscal conservative's dilemma.

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More Budget Deficit Estimates Released

FY 2002 Appropriations Update Congress completed its work on the last 3 FY 2002 appropriations bills (Defense, Foreign Operations, and Labor-HHS-Education) on December 21 and the President is expected to sign all three of them and bring the appropriations season to an official completion. According to usbudget.com, the bills are being readied for the President's signature and he is expected to sign them on January 10, when the Continuing Resolution - passed on December 20 - expires. Though estimates by Democrats and Republicans of the size of the deficits differ, and will continue to grow substantially depending on the amount of additional homeland security and defense spending approved this year, both sides agree that the deficit will likely be at least $15 billion -- the Democrats are predicting it could be as large as $70 billion.

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New Priorities and Future Tax Cuts

Kennedy, Daschle and their Republican counterparts have made clear over the last 4 months that the nation is now facing new problems (on top of existing problems) and we cannot afford a debate over semantics. Instead, we must address the problems laid out by Daschle and Kennedy over the last 2 weeks and by the President in his State of the Union address next week.

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The Role of Government Performance in the FY 2003 Budget

As we have said before, if improving government performance is limited to threatening agencies with cuts, rather than working together with Congress and the Administration to truly make government more effective and useful to citizens, we can't expect much good to come from this new attempt at improving government.

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Table: FY 2002-03 Percentage Growth in Discretionary Budget Authority

Note: Many of the increases noted in the table below are due to programs specifically concerned with the President's $37.7 billion Homeland Security budget. For a more-detailed analysis of the components of the Homeland Security and other agency budgets, please see the OMB Watch website for other analyses.

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Amendment To Permanently Repeal Estate Tax

Demise of economic stimulus package brings end to efforts to make estate tax repeal permanent -- for now, at least.

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Whatever It Takes!

Wouldn't it be great if we could resolve to do whatever it takes so that everyone who works can afford shelter and food, or to clean up the nation's water and air, or make sure no child goes to bed hungry -- just as we've resolved to do whatever it takes to fight the war on terrorism?

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The Bush Budget: Reagan Redux

OMB Watch will continue to analyze the President's FY 2003 Budget. Please see the OMB Watch website over the next week for further analyses of homeland security spending, cuts to human needs spending, and spending increases on future tax cuts. The President's Budget is now online. The Washington Post has provided an agency-by-agency overview of the President's proposed spending increases and cuts.

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