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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EJ Dionne's Column and A Rant About Fiscal Responsibility

Oct 5, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Not much to disagree with in E.J. Dionne's column on the war tax today. I wanted to highlight this passage, though: Would conservatives and Republicans support the war in Iraq if they had to pay for it? That is the immensely useful question that Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, put on the table this week by calling for a temporary war tax to cover President Bush's request for $145 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq.

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Estate Planning: PAYGO and Raising (gasp) Revenue!

Oct 5, 2007 by Dana Chasin

After Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) agreed to withdraw an amendment to cut the estate tax, Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus (D-MT) promised a committee mark-up of Kyl's amendment next spring.

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I'm Not Ready to Play Nice, I'm Not Ready To Back Down

Oct 5, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Democratic leaders are rejecting an SCHIP compromise with President Bush for now.

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Approps Update: Defense and 302(b) Allocation Situation Worked Out

Oct 5, 2007 by Craig Jennings

On Wednesday evening, the Senate passed, by voice vote, the FY 2008 Defense spending bill. Although both House and Senate versions have identical bottom lines, there are differences between the measures regarding funding levels for specific programs. CQ($) informs us that, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), "Conferences have started." Additionally, Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have worked out a "302(b) allocation situation." It looks like we could see a bill or two move to the president's desk soon. October 5, 2007 House Senate Conf. Cmte. President

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More Famous Than Harry & Louise?

Oct 4, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Later today, the Senate Finance Committee is expected an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-IA) that would cut the federal estate tax, claiming that the tax is hurting family farms by forcing family farmers to sell their farms in order to pay the tax. We'd like to see one example of a family having to sell their farm in order to pay for the estate tax.

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Internet Access Tax: Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Oct 4, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Please help me out here. See, there's a $100 billion dollar industry in the United States that has enjoyed a federally-mandated moratorium on sales taxes for over a decade, arguing that unless the moratorium is made permanent, small retailers will have a hard time competing against the big, bad guys. As Brian Bieron, the senior director of government relations at eBay, said, fewer small businesses and customers would use the Internet if the ban expires: "That means fewer sales and less opportunity to compete with the mega-retailers."

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Bill to Hold Contractors Accountable for Crimes Passed

Oct 4, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would make it legal to try contractors in U.S. courts. See the Washington Post for details.

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War Tax: It's Inevitable

Oct 4, 2007 by Matt Lewis

In a blog post last week, I wrote that "no politician worth their salt will support a massive progressive tax increase to pay off all the debt generated by the war." We here at OMB Watch believe in holding people accountable, so here goes: I was wrong. Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) has basically done just that, and he is a politician "worth his salt" (full disclosure: he's the co-chair of the board of the Congressional Hunger Center, which runs an amazing fellowship that first got me to Washington). He writes in the Boston Globe today:

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How Many Votes Are Really Needed to Override The President's SCHIP Veto?

Oct 4, 2007 by Craig Jennings

There seems to be some confusion in the press over how many votes will be needed to override President Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill. It's pretty much basic arithmetic. There are 435 members in the House. You need a 2/3rds majority of all voting members to overide a veto. So at most, 290 members will have to vote to override. That's all we know for sure.

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Even Bad Contractors Get New Contracts!

Oct 3, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

U.S. PIRG released a new report today that profiles how contractors who have poor performance or fraudulent practices can still receive new contracts from the federal government. The report profiles companies such as Bank of America, General Electric, Lexis-Nexis, Kellogg, Brown, and Root, and Northrup Grumman, among others. An excerpt from the report's executive summary: The rapid increase of federally contracted dollars—100 percent since 2000—makes outsourcing the fastest growing component of discretionary spending. The government's preference for using outside contractors to provide goods and services makes careful scrutiny of the process and the decisions more important than in the past. At present, loose rules, lack of competition, and limited accountability permit so-called 'bad actors' to receive contracts that put taxpayers and our money at risk. It's a very interesting report and I'm sure, as they imply, these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Also of note, they use FedSpending.org for their contracts data - very cool! U.S. PIRG: Forgiving Fraud and Failure: Profiles in Federal Contracting

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