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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Fantasy Tax Policy: AMT Without Offsets

Jun 18, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Some anti-tax groups and the Wall Street Journal are teaming up to promote a tantalizing tax policy: AMT repeal not subject to pay-as-you-go budgetary rules. Per The Hill, heavy hitters including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable and Americans for Tax Reform, managed by activist Grover Norquist, are lobbying the Senate Finance Committee.

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Is Inequality Unfair?

Jun 18, 2007 by Matt Lewis

A final note on the Hamilton Project paper. A little less doom and gloom, this time. Inequality, and the decoupling of productivity gains and growth in the median income, has not caused the Hamiltonians to reconsider their core beliefs about markets. They are generally concerned that living standards have not improved as much as one would expect, given productivity gains. But they do not draw from this well-known trend that there is anything either ineffective or unfair about how the market operates.

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Earmark Agreement Achieved: Earmarking Credit

Jun 15, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Rep. David Obey and the bipartisan House leadership deserve credit for arriving at an agreement yesterday regarding earmark procedures for most of the FY 2008 spending bills to come before the House floor over the next several weeks and months, providing that members will have the opportunity to review and amend such earmarks as they deem fit.

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Approps Update: House Passes Homeland Security

Jun 15, 2007 by Craig Jennings

CQ($) The [Homeland Security appropriations] legislation which passed 268-150 included Republican amendments adding funds for border fencing at the expense of the Homeland Security secretary's administrative budgets and a ban on funding implementation of new passport requirements for Western Hemisphere travelers. [...] Overall, the bill would provide $37.4 billion to the Homeland Security Department in fiscal 2008. Of that, $36.25 billion would be discretionary spending, $2.1 billion, or 6 percent, more than President Bush requested, and $4.3 billion, or 14 percent, more than in fiscal 2007.

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Sorry, More on Hamilton

Jun 15, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Boy, this Hamilton Project paper is fascinating. Here's another paragraph to examine. It's a window into the values of the centrist economist. At some point inequality in outcomes becomes so great that the quintessential American promise of equality of opportunity becomes unattainable. As Bradford DeLong (2007)

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Approps Tracking

Jun 15, 2007 by Craig Jennings

To keep you up to date on the status of the appropriations process, we'll update and post the following chart indicating the status of each of the 12 federal spending bills. Each column represents a gatekeeper in both chambers for each bill - the responsible appropriations subcommittee, the full appropriations committee, and the full chamber. A green box indicates that the respective body has approved the bill and is awaiting approval of the next body. The number in each box is the dollar amount in billions that the body has appropriated.

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President Drops Veto Threat, Seeks Offsets on Mil Con

Jun 15, 2007 by Dana Chasin

But Senate Appropriations Omits Offsets in 28-1 Vote As we surmised last week, President Bush has dropped his long-standing threat to veto any FY 2008 appropriations bills that exceed the amounts he has requested, agreeing to sign a Military Construction-VA bill that provides $4 billion more than he has sought, so long as the $4 billion difference is accompanied by "reductions in other appropriations bills to offset this increase," according to Wednesday's

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Earmarks Impasse Ends -- Obey to Permit Amendments

Jun 15, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Late yesterday, the week-long impasse between House Appropriations chair David Obey (D-WI) and the House GOP leadership came to an end, with Obey agreeing generally to include earmarks in FY 2008 spending bills before they come to the floor. He had earlier declared that earmarks would be added in conference committee negotiations -- when bills are no longer subject to amendment -- making the removal of individual earmarks impossible.

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House Earmarks Agreement -- Deal or Duel?

Jun 14, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Rumors circulated throughout the day today on Capitol Hill that some kind of "deal" had been struck between House Appropriations chair David Obey (D-OH) and the GOP House leadership regarding earmarks procedure, an issue that has attracted national media scrutiny this month. At a morning news conference, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) went so far as to announce that Obey had agreed to let 10 of the 12 FY 2008 spending bills come to the floor prior to conference (that is, while still amendable), with the bills' earmarks included.

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ECAP Statement on Veto-Sustaining House Republicans

Jun 14, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The ECAP Coalition issued a statement on the 147 House Republicans who think it's smart to cozy up to the President and his severe budget: 147 House Republicans Cave to Pressure from Right-Wingers to Support Bush Veto and Cut Funding for Americans in Need Congress Has a Clear Choice: Stand with the President's Cuts to Health and Education, or Support America's Hardworking Families WASHINGTON, DC — According to press reports this morning, 147 Republican Members of Congress have caved to political pressure from the GOP leadership and special interests and signed a "Republican Study Committee" letter pledging to support a Presidential veto of any appropriations bill that increase spending on health care, education, and other critical needs for lower- and middle-income families. By signing the right-wing "Republican Study Committee" letter, Members of Congress were pledging to sustain a veto of appropriations measures sight unseen. Congress passed a budget last month that begins to reverse six years of misguided priorities in previous Republican budgets, but the White House has threatened to veto any domestic spending above the President's requested levels, claiming that these much needed and overdue increases would be too expensive. But the fact is that the President's budget would spend far more on tax cuts for millionaires than it would save from all of the cuts to domestic discretionary programs[i].

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