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

When the Rules Hit the Road, Will Feathers Fly?

Sep 18, 2006 by Dana Chasin

As Congress nears its target adjournment date of Sept. 29, the odds of its passing more than a small handful of the outstanding FY 2007 spending bills are lengthening. Congressional procrastination means that passage of a continuing budget resolution will be necessary to keep the government operating when the 2007 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, followed by a (probably lame-duck) omnibus spending package comprising appropriations bills uncompleted before the end of the year. These conference reports and omnibus packages are notorious vehicles for feather-bedding earmarks.

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Halliburton and Friends, Exposed

Sep 18, 2006 by Matt Lewis

TomPaine.com has a good article on the cost of a privatized military here.

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GAO: Fiscal Policy "Unsustainable"

Sep 18, 2006 by Matthew Madia

CBO chief Donald Marron, a month ago : "[T]he message I would send is that we've gone from a period in which the fiscal deficits we were running in this country were large and not sustainable if they had persisted, to a situation in which, at least now and for next year, for several years going forward, deficits appear to be in a range that they're sustainable.”

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Understanding the New Earmark Rule

Sep 15, 2006 by Matt Lewis

Here's our summary of the House's new rule on earmark disclosure.

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Income Inequality: Terms of the Debate

Sep 15, 2006 by Craig Jennings

Paul Krugman crystallizes the issue of income inequality(sub. req'd). Yet in spite of all this technological progress, which has allowed the average American worker to produce much more, we’re not sure whether there was any rise in the typical worker’s pay. Only those at the upper end of the income distribution saw clear gains — gains that were enormous for the lucky few at the very top.

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Gang of Four Struggle With Trifecta Strategy

Sep 14, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

Be sure to check out our own Dana Chasin guest blogging over at TPM Cafe this month on the trifecta bill and the estate tax. Frist has now charged four Republican Senators with the task of figure out how to ram through his failed strategy on the estate tax before they recess for the year. Get all the latest details at TPM Cafe: Trifecta Failure -- The Fingerprint File.

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By 245-171, House Adopts Earmark Disclosure Rule

Sep 14, 2006 by Dana Chasin

After intense horse-trading and vote-counting, the House voted 245-171 this afternoon to impose upon itself a "house" rule requiring that a House committee identify the sponsor of each earmark contained in legislation that it reports. The rule will stay on the House books until the current Congress adjourns; it would have to be re-approved de novo to apply to succeeding Congresses.

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Who's Afraid of Dynamic Analysis?

Sep 14, 2006 by Matt Lewis

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), testified at a House Budget Committee hearing on dynamic analysis yesterday. He is a well-respected, center-right economist, and people take his opinion seriously. And he is a fan of dynamic analysis. Lots of progressives worry that dynamic analysis could justify nasty tax cuts with voodoo-supply-side economics. But from a political perspective, dynamic analysis may not be such a bad thing.

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A Medicare Fix to Cure Ailing Trifecta?

Sep 14, 2006 by Dana Chasin

With time running out before adjournment and the House Republican Study Committee now openly urging that the tax credit extension component of the “trifecta” (HR 5970), be passed as a separate bill, GOP House and Senate congressional leadership is beginning to look desperate. Yesterday, House Ways and Means Chair Bill Thomas (R-CA) floated the idea of adding a fourth piece to the trifecta that would stop the scheduled 5.1 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians now set for Jan. 1.

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Bolting from Boehner -- Earmarks in the Balance

Sep 14, 2006 by Dana Chasin

The political battle lines remain blurred, so the outcome is unclear, as the House prepares to vote later today on H. Res. 1000, the House's own earmark disclosure rule. As we’ve target="_blank">noted, House Appropriations Chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA) is finding excuses to oppose the proposed rule and may have enough Committee colleague with him to defeat it. “The Appropriations Committee is clearly together,” Lewis said yesterday.

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