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

Health Care Spending - It's Not the Aging of the Population

Apr 10, 2008 by Craig Jennings

If policy makers are truly interested in fixing the Entitlement Crisis™, they need to look at the factors that are pushing the federal budget along an unsustainable path. As we've noted before, Social Security has minor financing issues, but its full-benefit operation does not pose a threat to long-term fiscal fitness. Medicare, however, does. And while it is tempting to indict the aging of the Baby Boom generation for fueling rapid increases in health care costs, policy makers would be wrong to set out to simply reduce benefits and/or increase Medicare premiums as a fix. Instead, they should focus their efforts on the supply side of health care, rather than increased demand resulting from the aging of the population.

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"Foreclosure Prevention" Vote: Baucus & Grassley Win

Apr 10, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Emph. Added Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) won passage of important tax relief measures for homeowners, homebuyers, and homebuilders as part of the housing bill approved 84-12 by the Senate today. The Baucus-Grassley tax provisions, which total $10.9 billion over 10 years, aren't paid for, but it's so worth it. The bill allows companies, mostly those unrelated to the housing sector losing money — and facing employee layoffs — to write off current losses and bolster struggling operations.

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W&M Twofer: Contractor Provision Passed with Tax Bill

Apr 10, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Taxpayer Assistance and Simplification Act (H.R. 5719) approved by the House Ways & Means Committee yesterday contains a measure that would force U.S. firms employing workers through foreign shell companies to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes if the work is performed under a contract with the federal government. The provision's language is lifted from the Fair Share Act of 2008 (H.R. 5602), which was introduced in the Senate and House on March 13. The measure would bring in, over ten years, $846 million in new revenue.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- April 10, 2008

Apr 10, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Housing -- White House Endorses Frank-Style Plan: In a case of strange bedfellows, the administration now supports the plan supported by Democrats to stabilize the battered housing market by allowing a homeowner, who may now owe more than his home is worth, to get out of an expensive adjustable-rate mortgage and refinance into a more stable and affordable 30-year loan backed by the federal government. Story.

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Housing Assistance Tax Clears Ways & Means

Apr 9, 2008 by Dana Chasin

This afternoon, the House Ways & Means Committee adopted H.R. 5720, the Housing Assistance Tax Act of 2008, by a vote of 35-5. The bill, effectively the tax title of House Financial Service Committee Chair Barney Frank's FHA Housing Stabilization and Homeownership Retention Act, costs $11 billion over the next five and ten years, all but fully offset. What it provides/How much it costs:

First-time home buyer credit/$3.78 billion over 10 years
Hike in mortgage revenue bonds/$1.37 billion
New standard deduction for property tax/$1.117 billion

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Ways & Means Looks to End Private Tax Collection

Apr 9, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The House Ways & Means Committee is expected ($) to markup legislation (H.R. 5719) today that would end the IRS's private tax collection initiative. Today's markup begins another attempt to put the kibosh on this wasteful program. Efforts to end the program have been stymied in the past by Senate opposition and House parliamentary rules. The latest effort to end the program was initially inserted in the FY 2008 Financial Services appropriations bill in the House but was stripped out prior to including the bills language in the FY 2008 omnibus spending measure.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- April 9, 2008

Apr 9, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Health Care -- Bipartisan Support for Blocking Bush Medicaid Rule: CQ reports ($) that a House bill that would block the president's Medicaid rule changes is gaining support among Republicans. The proposed rule changes would shift about $17.8 billion (over five years) in Medicaid costs to states. The bill, H.R. 5613, will be marked up today in the Committee on Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee.

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Deconstructing Obstruction

Apr 8, 2008 by Dana Chasin

White House spokesperson Dana Perino made the following statement conveying President Bush's opposition to the Senate Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, which won a cloture vote in the Senate this afternoon, 92-6. Perino: The bill will likely do more harm than good by bailing out lenders and speculators, and passing on costs to other Americans who play by the rules and honor their mortgage debt obligations.

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NYT Quotation of the Day

Apr 8, 2008 by Dana Chasin

For the Hard of Ear-ing No matter what you want to call it, an earmark is an earmark. If Congressional leaders don't believe that soft earmarks are earmarks, then I think that makes the case as to why we need tougher reforms in place. - Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), on pork-barrel spending But, to be fair, Flake wasn't quoted here about pork-barrel spending. He was quoted about earmarks. If you're interested in the difference -- and if you writers and editors at the Times are listening -- have a look at this, esp. pp. 3-5.

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Monthly Budget Review: March, 2008

Apr 8, 2008 by Craig Jennings

CBO estimates that the government incurred a deficit of $310 billion in the first half of 2008. The deficit last year at the same point in time was $258 billion. The $51 billion increase in the deficit through March was largely unaffected by differences in the timing of receipts or expenditures. A number of programs experienced double-digit percentage increases in spending in the first half of the year—including food and nutrition programs, unemployment benefits, veterans' health care, federal-aid highways, and community development block grants.

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