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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

more news

Playing Chicken Over Social Security's Future

By now it should be obvious to everyone, including Congress, that it is not possible to adhere to the budget limits (caps) on discretionary spending and pass realistic spending bills for FY 2000, at least not without resorting to accounting gimmicks and trickery. Sticking to the caps means drastic and politically unfeasible cuts. This should be good news for advocates who have been arguing all along that staying within the budget caps would severely slash important spending needs, including education, health, environmental protection, housing, and a score of other beneficial programs, especially those upon which low to mid-income Americans depend.

read in full

OMB Watch Comments on Program Assessment Ratings Tool from OMB

The following are comments sent by OMB Watch to OMB on the Program Assessment Ratings Tool (PART) tool arising from the first meeting of the Performance Measurement Advisory Council. The comments are also available in Adobe Acrobat PDF

read in full

Estate Tax Repeal Proponents Launch New Round of Misleading Attack Ads

Repeal proponents may have failed to secure enough Senate support to make estate tax repeal permanent (see this OMB Watch article) in their June 12 vote, but that vote seems to have only strengthened their resolve. They have launched attack ads against a number of Senators who voted to for reform over repeal of the estate tax instead of repeal it.

read in full

Bumping Our Heads Against the Debt Ceiling

On June 28, the day Congress is planning to leave for the July 4 recess, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill has warned that the government will run out of money to pay its bills unless Congress increases the limit on how much the Treasury can borrow. This means parts of government, if not all of it, will no longer properly function, and government will default on its bills. This has been publicly described as a showdown between the Bush administration and Congress, but in fact it is really a showdown between Bush and the Republicans in the House.

read in full

A Resounding "No" to Estate Tax Repeal

On June 12, the Senate rejected a proposal by Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) to make repeal of the estate tax, which under current law only expires for only one year, in 2010, permanent. Repeal advocates needed 60 votes to send the House-passed estate tax repeal bill on to the President for his signature, but only received 54 votes -- 44 Senators, including 2 Republicans, voted against repeal. This is even fewer votes than repeal proponents received in February on a non-binding .

read in full

Budget Process, October 1, And Tax Cuts

With the expiration of key Senate budget rules on October 1, tax cuts will get easier to pass.

read in full

Senate Rejects Permanent Repeal of the Estate Tax

Seattle Times article, June 13, 2002 This Seattle Times article reports on the efforts of pro- and anti-repeal advocates, as well as the results of the June 12 Senate vote on permanent repeal of the estate tax.

read in full

Tax-Cut Cynicism

New York Times Editorial, June 13, 2002 This New York Times Editorial piece argues that since all but 2% of the country's estates are subject to the estate tax, "The movement to repeal the estate tax has been a cynical and fraudulent exercise. Supporters say they want to protect people inheriting family farms and small businesses. But those estates have almost all been exempted."

read in full

Transcript of Remarks of Sen. Kent Conrad

On June 12, 2002, Sen. Kent Conrad, William H. Gates, Sr., and Americans for a Fair Estate Tax released the results from a poll conducted in May on views of the estate tax among the American public. The following is the transcript of the remarks by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND). I think the message is very clear from the polling. The people of the country favor reform of the estate tax rather than repeal. I think if one examines the issue carefully, one can see that repeal is both unfair and unaffordable.

read in full

"The Inherited Wealth Lobby"

E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post, June 14, 2002 In this op-ed piece, Dionne urges opponents of permanent estate tax repeal not to "shy away from this issue. They should make their case with confidence. They are prepared to protect the overwhelming majority of Americans from estate taxes. But the inherited-wealth lobby and its political allies won't let them do it."

read in full