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

Bush's Budget Plan Includes Hidden Cuts, Document Reveals

Feb 9, 2006 by Matthew Madia

An eye-opening article in today's Washington Post says that internal White House documents indicate that meeting the president's goal of cutting the deficit in half will involve a significant amount of cutting to domestic programs -- even to those supposedly "favored" by President Bush.

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Educated Opinions on the Budget

Feb 8, 2006 by Guest Blogger

Recently there have been some interesting op-eds on budget business in the Washington Post. Former CBO head Douglas Holtz-Eakin submitted an op-ed February 5 in which he discussed how increasingly booming entitlement programs need a "fundamental rethinking" that will dictate both the size of government as well as levels of taxation. E.J. Dionne, Jr. discusses in a February 7 column how "tax cutting is now the idol of the Republican shrine," and points out that sane budgeting will never happen unless deficit hawks work to turn popular opinion against this worship of tax cutting.

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CBO Again Finds Fiscal Policies Unsustainable

The recently updated Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Budget and Economic Outlook shows no significant improvement in the long-term fiscal health of the nation. In fact, the nonpartisan agency that provides Congress with budget and economic analysis found the situation worsening and reiterated that the current structure of taxation and spending is simply unsustainable.

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CBO Releases December Monthly Budget Review

Feb 8, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

Overshadowed by the President's budget release, the Congressional Budget Office released its monthly budget review for December 2005 this past Monday. CBO estimates the federal government ran a deficit of $95 billion over the first four months of FY 2006. This is $15 billion less than the same period last year.

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Watcher: February 8, 2006

Feb 8, 2006 by Guest Blogger

Initial Analysis of the President's 2007 Budget CBO Again Finds Fiscal Policies Unsustainable Congress to Have Short Year; Appropriations Work Likely to Suffer Final Budget Bill Passed; Tax Bill Sent to Conference

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Bush's Social Security Plan Rears Its Ugly Head

Feb 8, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

Despite providing the State of the Union address with its only truly funny section, President Bush's Social Security overhaul plan was barely mentioned during the speech. Bush proposed instead the classic "bipartisan commission" to put off real debate and most likely push the problem to someone else beyond his presidency. Yet the much publicized and thoroughly failed policies of Social Security privitization have not disappeared. In fact, they have been included in the FY 2007 budget release.

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U.S. Government in Debt up to its Eyeballs

Feb 8, 2006 by Matthew Madia

President Bush's FY 2007 budget released on Monday allocated $441.3 billion for interest payments on the debt during fiscal year 2007. That's a huge 39 percent increase over the $318 billion spent four years ago and a 25 percent increase from the $352 billion spent last year. The president's allocation is a 11 percent increase over last year's request.

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Final Budget Bill Passed; Tax Bill Sent to Conference

A little over a month into 2006, Congress continues its effort to finish extraneous budget reconciliation bills from 2005. The reconciliation bills, which were laid out nearly a year ago in the April budget resolution, took up much of Congress' already-limited time last fall and winter and have laid out a number of extremely irresponsible fiscal policies.

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Congress to Have Short Year; Appropriations Work Likely to Suffer

Each year the congressional leadership is responsible for setting Congress' legislative calendar, and this year that calendar will be tightly packed with the smorgasbord of issues Congress must tackle in the coming months. The legislative work Congress fails to finish, however, may be what makes headlines in 2006. This year boasts the fewest legislative days for Congress in twenty years, and this compressed election-year schedule is sure to make finishing appropriations bills before the end of the fiscal year on Oct.

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Less Money for Big Bird in 2007

Feb 7, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

One of the more high profile budget cuts proposed by President Bush in his 2007 budget so far is a $53.5 million cut to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the largest cut President Bush has ever proposed. Similar cuts have been proposed in year's past, but have not been enacted by Congress because of broad bipartisan support for public broadcasting. With the budget squeeze even tighter this year, it may be increasingly difficult to stave off the cuts. The 2007 proposal would be a 13 percent real cut in the CPB budget. Reuters: Bush Seeks to Slash Public Broadcasting Funds

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