New Posts

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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The Threat to Our Democracy from the Debt Ceiling Deal

The U.S. Capitol

Bob Greenstein, president of the well-respected Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), lays out the broader consequence of the self-inflicted debt ceiling crisis and, in short, it's a "terrifying" new framework of federal budget politics that enshrines minority rule and threatens to "undermine democracy."

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Let's Have Contractor Disclosure Already

A disclosure document

Last week, a group of more than 60 House lawmakers sent a letter to President Obama offering their "full support" for final release of a proposed executive order (EO) that would require disclosure of contractors' political spending. After more than three months of baseless attacks on the prospective EO from a relentless special interest smear machine, it's time for the president to establish this basic measure of accountability within the federal contracting system.

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OMB Watch Urges Congress to Vote No on Balanced Budget Amendment

The House has just passed (218-210) a plan to increase the debt ceiling. Tommorow, the House is expected to take up two versions of a resolution (H.J. Res. 1 and H.J. Res. 2) that, if approved by both chambers, would be the first step to add a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. OMB Watch has sent a letter to the House strongly urging all members to vote "no" on this harmful amendment.

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With FAA Reauthorization, Congress Fiddles While Everyone Else Burns

Add this to the list of the nation’s current budgetary woes: according to Bloomberg news, the Treasury is losing about $30 million a day, or close to $200 million a week, because Congress has allowed the Federal Aviation Administration’s congressional authorization to lapse and, as a result, Treasury isn’t collecting taxes on airplane tickets. The House of Representatives is trying to ram through a provision that will make it harder for aviation workers to unionize, and the debate is holding up the latest in a long, long line of short-term extensions of the FAA’s authorization. Although it has been extended twenty times since it expired in 2007, Congress failed to re-authorize the FAA by July 22, meaning Treasury no longer has the authority to collect airline taxes. To add insult to injury, airlines have used this as an opportunity to raise their prices and reap more profit from consumers.

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Army Report Highlights Need for More Contracting Officers

A recently released review of the U.S. Army's acquisition process reveals that the service must invest in more acquisition personnel and better training to help address failed weapons programs and their associated costs. Arresting staggering cost increases is an important objective for the Army, but Congress's current obsession with deficit reduction may become the greatest impediment to saving taxpayer dollars.

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Commentary: Why Congress Needs to Pass a Clean Debt Ceiling Bill

Washington is embroiled in a massive debate over raising the debt ceiling, the statute that sets a limit on the amount of money the federal government can borrow. If the ceiling is not raised before Aug. 2, the nation could default on its debt, which could create immediate and long-term damage to an economy already beset with problems.

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Cut, Cap, and Balance and the Future of the Balanced Budget Amendment

Conservative members of Congress are not being very helpful in the debt ceiling debate. The Republican-led House of Representatives earlier this week voted through their "solution" to the problem in the form of the so-called “Cut, Cap, and Balance” bill. But the House likely only voted on the bill because they couldn’t get enough votes for the bill conservatives actually wanted: a balanced budget amendment filled with conservative policy goals. But with the Senate unlikely to pass the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill, Congress might turn to the next worse alternative: a plain balanced budget amendment.

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Whose Contracting Mess Won't Appear in FAPIIS, but Should?

They hate us for our freedoms.

Give yourself credit if you guessed "ArmorGroup North America Inc." (AGNA) and the "Lord of the Flies" environment they oversaw in the housing camp for U.S embassy guards in Kabul, Afghanistan, which our friends over at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) exposed back in 2009.

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Hundreds of Organizations Oppose Balanced Budget Amendment

OMB Watch has long been a vocal opponent of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Now, we have a lot of company. In a letter released today, a full 247 national organizations, including OMB Watch, announced their opposition to a balanced budget amendment, believing it is bad for America.

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The Backup Budget

A bizarre ritual is going on in Congress in advance of fiscal year (FY) 2012. Appropriators are doing their job, writing and passing bills setting the year’s discretionary spending levels, but their efforts might be wasted. With the budget becoming tightly entwined with the looming debt ceiling deadline, all of the recent appropriations activity is probably for naught.

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Resources & Research

Living in the Shadow of Danger: Poverty, Race, and Unequal Chemical Facility Hazards

People of color and people living in poverty, especially poor children of color, are significantly more likely...

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A Tale of Two Retirements: One for CEOs and One for the Rest of Us

The 100 largest CEO retirement funds are worth a combined $4.9 billion, equal to the entire retirement account savings of 41 percent of American fam...

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