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

SCHIP Is About Politics

Nov 5, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The NYT a pretty interesting article on the politics behind SCHIP, but it has big problems. First, the article makes it pretty clear that the President decided to veto this bill regardless of what was in it. He has never tried to work with the bill's designers to come up with an acceptable compromise. The veto is entirely his decision and his fault. So why then is the headline "Missteps on Both Sides Led to Health Bill Veto?" Now, who's fault is it that the veto wasn't overridden?

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PAYGO, Carried Interest Take One Small Step

Nov 2, 2007 by Dana Chasin

By a party-line vote of 22-13, the House Ways and Means Committee voted yesterday to approve a $77 billion, PAYGO-compliant, one-year Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch, holding the number of taxpayers subject to AMT steady at four million and keeping nearly 20 million Americans from having to pay the AMT for the first time.

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It's the Policy, Stupid

Nov 2, 2007 by Matt Lewis

With the departure of Tom DeLay and his jailed associates, Congressional Republicans have become the guardians of fair legislative process, or so they would have you believe. Take just about any issue where they have an unpopular stance, and it's almost guaranteed that they will finger-wag and bray about "playing politics" and so on.

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Halloween Lexicon: Scared, with a College Education

Nov 2, 2007 by Dana Chasin

In a moment of brilliance, after one of the Three Stooges asks another what "apprehensive" means, the other says, "Dat means scared ... with a college education, yuck yuck yuck." I was reminded of this exchange when I heard comments by some real logical folks at yesterday's House Ways & Means Committee mark-up of the AMT patch bill. "Nonsense" Exhibit A is on display below.

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Senate Approves Revised SCHIP Bill

Nov 2, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Last night, the Senate passed the latest version of the SCHIP package. The 65-30 vote (roll call is veto-proof, because enough Senators who didn't vote are reliable "yea" votes. Since the bill did not receive a veto-proof majority in the House, Congressional leaders may decide to not send the bill to the President. Instead, Senate and House negotiators appear to be working hard on a new compromise bill that could be voted on as early as next week.

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Nonsense

Nov 2, 2007 by Craig Jennings

This is...well, it's just sad. Ranking member Jim McCrery (R-La.) said the AMT patch should not be offset because the patch is not a tax cut, rather is prevents a tax increase. Congress, he said, is in a "straight jacket" McCrery is a 16-year old explaining a fender bender to his parents. "No, see, what happened was I didn't crash into that parked car. It was parked illegally, right? So it prevented me from driving legally. It ran into me, really."

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One If By Legislation, Two If By Regulation

Nov 1, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The House Committe on Oversight and Government Reform had a hearing today on the Bush administration's backdoor Medicaid cuts. Extremely loyal BudgetBlog readers may recall that the Administration has been pushing for rules that would cut Medicaid ever since the same cuts were rejected by the last (Republican-controlled!) Congress. I guess they haven't given up. The Administration is claiming that the rules will cut down on bad claims on Medicaid. Not so, says Chairman Waxman.

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Labor-HHS To Be Linked To MilCon-VA

Nov 1, 2007 by Matt Lewis

CQ is reporting that congressional negotiators have agreed to a joint Labor/HHS-MilCon/VA bill. The House will likely vote on Tuesday, and the Senate Wednesday. The Department of Defense appropriations bill is no longer part of the package.

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AMT and TPM

Nov 1, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Check out Dana's TPM Cafe post on the AMT. After months of delays and anticipation, House Ways and Means Chair Charles Rangel (D-NY) finally unveiled his self-described "mother of all tax bills" last week, the Tax Reduction and Reform Act. The revenue-neutral trillion-dollar bill proposes the abolition of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), a package of "offsets" to pay for it, and a progressive redistribution of the regular income tax.

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Responsible Fiscal Action: AARP's Perspective

Oct 31, 2007 by Dana Chasin

We commend for your consideration the testimony presented at today's Senate Budget Committee hearing on S. 2063, the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action Act of 2007, by William Novelli, CEO of AARP.

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