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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Support for Estate Tax Shaky in Congress

Mar 25, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Although no timetable is set for legislation yet, proponents of estate tax repeal will push this year to gather the 60 votes necessary to clear a measure repealing the tax. This is projected to happen despite widespread concerns about an exploding budget deficit; record-low levels of national revenue; very high potential future costs of Medicare liabilities, Social Security reform, and Alternative Minimum Tax reform; as well as the fact that Congress and the President are looking to further cut taxes. The House has more than enough votes to pass a permanent repeal measure, while the real fight would take place in the Senate to get a supermajority that would back repeal legislation. A new book on estate tax repeal is out, titled Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight Over Taxing Inherited Wealth. Written by Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro, the book seeks to answer how the estate tax, which has been around since 1916 and is paid by less than the wealthiest two percent of Americans, was voted in 2001 to be phased out through 2010 with broad bipartisan support and almost no coordinated opposition. The authors of the book, as well as other supporters of the estate tax, believe that estate tax repeal is not only morally irresponsible (because the tax is extremely progressive) but also economically irresponsible. Len Burman, who is authoring a new report, "Options to Reform the Estate Tax," has noted that permanent repeal would result in both a static annual cost of about $50 billion in revenue, as well as a drop in charitable contributions of about $17 billion annually. He also notes in a recent Tax Policy Center Issue Brief that raising the exemption to $3.5 million would cut the number of farms and businesses liable for the tax by 75 percent, to just over 100, with only about 10 small businesses affected. Given our current deficits, Congress would be wise to consider reform options to the estate tax, as opposed to permanent repeal. When Burman's paper outlining reform options becomes available, it will be posted here.

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New Federal Budget Policy Homepage

How Bush's FY06 Budget Will Affect Nonprofits The President's budget that was released on Feb. 7 is not just austere; it is also frighteningly bleak for nonprofit groups and the people and causes they serve. The President has manufactured a fiscal crisis with massive tax cuts, mainly targeted to the wealthy, that has resulted in federal revenues being reduced to the lowest levels since the 1950s as a percentage of our economy.

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Social Security Administration Releases Annual Report

Mar 23, 2005 by Guest Blogger

The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees released their 2005 annual report which states that "exhaustion" of the trust fund will occur one year earlier than predicted, or in 2041 as opposed to 2042. The report also finds that the amount of tax revenues taken in will fall below the amount the trust fund will pay out starting in 2017. The SSA originally stated this would happen in 2018. Now, they predict that the Social Security program will need to supplement trust fund receipts with general revenues in order to pay be able to pay people full benefits a year earlier. The new report also projects a Social Security shortfall of $4 trillion over the next 75 years. This number is up from the $3.7 trillion figure that economists and politicians have been quoting. Max Sawicky of the Economic Policy Institute notes that the Social Security crisis is not nearly as pressing as the problems being created by our large budget deficits, which were largely due to the administration's tax cuts. These deficits will hinder the government's ability pay for any and all of programs down the road, including Social Security and Medicare. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that in 2042, when the Social Security shortfall will supposedly be 1.37 percent of GDP, the overall budget deficit will be much greater than that --10.7 percent of GDP. Sawicky says, "While the administration tries to fiddle with a relatively small-scale Social Security shortfall, it is creating overall budget deficits that are burning a hole as far as the eye can see. Instead of focusing on a relatively small and distant problem, the administration would better serve the nation by fixing the much bigger and more immediate problem it has created." This is a sentiment echoed widely by economists and policy analysts, many of whom see the large costs of tax cuts and future skyrocketing costs of Medicare as much more serious problems. For more information see this Washington Post article and this report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. For more from the Social Security Administration, click here.

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Cutting Taxes in a Time of War

Mar 23, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Chuck Collins of United for a Fair Economy recently came out with a new op-ed which discusses traditional war-time sacrifice, and why now -- when we are in the midst of ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- it is not time to be cutting or scaling back the estate tax, much less other taxes. We are faced with a House and Senate which very recently passed budget blueprints prioritizing defense and homeland security above social welfare programs. Along with this, last thursday the House passed an $81.4 billion emergency supplemental bill to fund our war operations. Collins' op-ed makes a good point about priorities and sacrifice. Wars are costly, and cutting taxes for the wealthy while increasing war spending does not show that our leaders have the best interests of our country or economy in mind. Collins' article can be read here.

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New Study Questions Returns Under Bush SS Plan

Mar 22, 2005 by Adam Hughes*

A new study released this week by respected finance economist Robert Shiller finds up to three out of four workers who opt for President Bush's default investment option in his Social Security privitization plan would fare worse than if they remained in the traditional system. Using computer simulated models based on historical data, Shiller found a "disappointing outlook for investors in the personal accounts relative to the rhetoric of their promoters" and that Social Security actuaries and the Bush administration are using estimates of rates of return that are far to optimistic based on historical averages. Shiller concludes, "Given the risks, [Bush's] plan could be disastrous for some workers." Read more about the study in this Washington Post article.

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Deficits More Threatening Than Terrorism, Survey Shows

Mar 22, 2005 by Guest Blogger

The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) cunducted one of their biannual surveys from February 28th - March 8th of this year. The survey questioned economists, and results showed that a greater percentage of respondents believe the deficit is a greater short-term threat to Americans than terrorism. In the August 2004 survey, 40 percent of respondents named terrorism as the biggest threat, and 23 percent named the deficit the biggest threat. With 2004 deficit levels hitting a record high ($412 billion) and the President and Congress continuing to try to push through new tax cuts and extend old ones, it appears that many economists now view our deficit as a much more serious matter. In this survey, 27 percent of respondents noted the deficit as the largest threat, and 23 percent noted terrorism. The trade deficit, cited by 15 percent, and energy prices, cited by 11 percent, also rose in importance when compared with results from last August. Interestingly, 70 percent of respondents felt that Social Security had problems that need to be resolved, and the solution which received the highest rating (3.7 on a 5 point scale) was raising the retirement age. Privatization of the system received a rating of only 2.7. The rest of the results can be seen here.

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Watcher: March 22, 2005

Mar 22, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Federal Budget

House, Senate Pass Irresponsible FY06 Budget Resolutions
Smith, Kennedy Amendments Could Doom Budget Resolution
Despite Compromise, House Conservatives Could Threaten Budget Resolution
Bush Pushes Private Accounts as Public Support Drops
Bush, Congress Hide True Costs of Permanent Tax Cuts

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Bush, Congress Hide True Costs of Permanent Tax Cuts

Both the president and Congress have advanced five-year budget plans in 2005. These plans help to mask the true cost of policies to extend the president’s first-term tax cuts permanently, which explode after the current proposed budget window ends in 2010.

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Bush Pushes Private Accounts as Public Support Drops

President Bush has recently increased his efforts to sell the American public on his plan to privatize Social Security despite continuing evidence that more and more Americans are rejecting his proposals. Yet even while launching a “60 cities in 60 days” tour, the president and other administration officials have been carefully maneuvering to allow whatever reform is adopted to be seen as a victory for the administration.

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Despite Compromise, House Conservatives Could Threaten Budget Resolution

On March 17, the House debated and passed the fiscal year 2006 (FY06) budget resolution by a vote of 218–214, one week after the House Budget Committee voted along party lines to report out the resolution. House GOP leaders managed a last-minute compromise with a number of conservative Republican members of the House Study Committee who threatened to vote against the bill in the weeks leading up to the vote — but final passage will still be very difficult.

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