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

Americans Dislike Rising Inequality, Contrary to Popular Belief

It is commonly assumed that Americans do not oppose increasing inequality. After all, a consensus among social scientists exists that most Americans favor equality of opportunity over equality of outcome, and the public has supported welfare state retrenchment and regressive tax cuts, both of which increase inequality. However, this belief may be a misinterpretation of American values and policy preferences.

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Census Report Shows Working Americans Falling Behind

The U.S. Census Bureau released its annual report, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States 2006 on Aug. 28. The report, which covers the most recent Current Population Survey (CPS) data, showed slight overall improvement in income and poverty, but continued declining rates of health insurance coverage. The headline numbers — a 0.7 percent increase in median household income and a 0.3 percent decline in poverty — are undermined, however, by the underlying story that middle- and low-income working Americans are not seeing substantial gains from the current economy.

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Continuing Resolution a Virtual Certainty; Congress Continues to Work for Appropriations Passage

A plethora of veto threats and the Senate's dithering over spending legislation have combined to all but guarantee the necessity of enacting a continuing resolution before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1. While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has indicated that a continuing resolution will likely fund government operations for weeks, not months, time is not their only obstacle.

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Nussle Approved as Budget Head, Faces Task of Completing FY 2008 Budget

In the Senate's first vote following the August recess, former Rep. Jim Nussle (R-IA) was confirmed as director of the Office and Management and Budget (OMB), 69-24, with all Republican senators voting in favor of Nussle and the Democrats split down the middle. Notably, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Appropriations Committee Chair Robert Byrd (D-WV), and Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) voted against the nominee. Nussle's approval sets up what is expected to be a bitter struggle to complete work on the FY 2008 budget during the fall.

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Carried Interest Issue Gets Full Hearing(s) in Congress

On Sept. 6, the carried interest tax loophole took center stage, featuring a four-panel, 20-witness marathon hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee and the third hearing this year on the topic in the Senate Finance Committee. The day before the hearings, over 300 national, state and local nonprofit organizations sent a letter to Congress urging it to close the loophole in order to bring equity to the tax code.

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CMS Denies New SCHIP Rule Exemption for New York

Sep 11, 2007 by Craig Jennings

A couple weeks ago, the Bush Administration, via the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) promulgated new rules affecting eligibility requirements to which states must adhere in the administration of their SCHIP programs. On Friday, New York became the first state to be denied an exemption. WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — The Bush administration on Friday rejected a request from New York State to expand its children's health insurance program to cover 70,000 more uninsured youngsters, including some from middle-income families.

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Hold-Up in the Senate: Transparency Mugged Again

Sep 10, 2007 by Craig Jennings

The elimination under cover of darkness of that magnificent institution, the secret senatorial hold, is, apparently, a baleful "connivance" snuck into the lobbying and ethics bill, catching "rank-and-file" senators unawares and opening up the floodgates for "special interest measures," spoiling a "historic opportunity to expose secretive pork-barrel spending." If you doubt me, maybe you will believe Robert Novak?

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Paper Demystifying Carried Interest Issues Released

Sep 7, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Following up on the letter we reported was distributed this week from 300 organizations urging members of Congress to close the carried interest tax loophole, a working group of policy analysts has released a paper for advocates, legislative aides and members of the media. The paper, "Addressing Objections to H.R.

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War Supplemental On Hold Until October

Sep 7, 2007 by Craig Jennings

Roll Call ($): Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, said Thursday that an upcoming Iraq spending bill likely will wait until October and potentially later because Congress still does not have final requests from the Bush administration.

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David Brooks On Health Care

Sep 7, 2007 by Matt Lewis

David Brooks in the NYT today promotes Stuart Butler's plan for reforming the health insurance system. Skepticism is advised, on political grounds. The principle political obstacle holding back an efficient and fair benefit system is public fragmentation. Some of us get most benefits from the government- some of us get them from the private sector (with help from the government that often goes unrecognized). And most people don't want to lose what they have, even if it might be for a better deal later on.

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