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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OMB Watch Applauds Important Step Forward for Government Transparency

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2007—OMB Watch applauds the White House Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) launch of USASpending.gov, a new searchable website of federal contracts and financial assistance. USASpending.gov was created to meet the mandates of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (Transparency Act) and is based on OMB Watch's groundbreaking FedSpending.org software platform.

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Budget Fight Is Probably Over; Cuts Expected

Dec 12, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Speaker Pelosi is acceding to Bush's budget numbers, cutting $22 billion from the congressional budget proposal. We're asking that they spare human needs programs, but there's not much else to cut. They should be done crafting a bare-bones budget in the next day or so.

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Bush Tax Cuts Illustrated

Dec 12, 2007 by Craig Jennings

In addition to the report I wrote about earlier, the CBO has made the data underlying that report available in an Excel spreadsheet. Like Republicans and tax cuts, I just can't resist graphing income and tax data. So, here you go. This graph represents the shares of after-tax income for the lowest 4 quintiles and the top quintile. I knew the 2001-2003 Bush tax cuts were skewed toward the rich, but this graph really puts things into perspective. (Click on image to enlarge)

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Note to Norm: Deficits Don't Matter

Dec 12, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Leaving a Legacy of Kleptocracy In "Budget Gridlock Is a Shameful Legacy for Bush and Many Others," in today's Roll Call, leading congressional scholar Norman Orenstein bemoans the shrinking center in Congress and its impact on budget policy, as expressed in the current AMT and budget debates. Orenstein fingers the GOP for the fix we're in on AMT, sacrificing PAYGO on its altar and having to fix it at all:

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Does The Estate Tax Make The Economy More Efficient?

Dec 12, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Some interesting research (via Brad Plumer's blog) making the case that the estate tax actually makes the economy more efficient. Here's the abstract:

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Higher Tax Rates = Higher Income Inequality

Dec 12, 2007 by Craig Jennings

New figures released by the CBO indicate that overall effective federal tax rates have increased from 20.1% in 2004 to 20.5 in 2005%. Through a process known as "real bracket creep," Americans are paying higher tax rates without changes in the tax code. As incomes grow faster than inflation, taxpayers will find themselves paying taxes at higher marginal rates.

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Cirque du Senate, Take II

Dec 12, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Master of the Minority Mitch McConnell's Immodest Turn In a beautiful, if perhaps unintended, exposition of the hypocrasy of the McConnell legislative obstruction program in the Senate, a New York Times "Congressional Memo: "Muscle Flexing in Senate: G.O.P. Defends Strategy," quotes the Senate Majority Leader today as follows: I think we are being consistent here against higher taxes, consistently against greater regulation, consistently against creating new causes of action in bill after bill after bill. It's a positive message of our vision of America.

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Orszag In The WSJ

Dec 12, 2007 by Matt Lewis

CBO Director Peter Orszag editorializes in the Wall Street Journal today on long-term budget problems. It's a great piece. Key excerpts: The bottom line is that while we need to address the effects of the coming retirement of the baby boomers and the projected imbalance in Social Security, we have to pay even more attention to the health-care costs that exert the dominant influence on our fiscal future. Policy makers will face both challenges and opportunities in trying to reduce these costs...

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New Report: Privatization In The States

Dec 11, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The Progressive States Network just put out an excellent report on privatization. It does three things mainly:

Documents the failures and dangers of privatizing government on the state level
Makes the case for increased transparency of privatized state government
And with the data available, measures the extent of privatization on a number of policy areas in each state.

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The SCHIP Campaign Is Probably Over

Dec 11, 2007 by Matt Lewis

It now appears that the SCHIP expansion is sunk. CQ (subscription) is reporting that a one-year extension for SCHIP, with some additional funds to prevent cuts, will be tied to a bill that tweaks Medicare payments. That means a funding increase will have to wait until probably the year after next.

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