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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

more news

Environmental Protections Threatened by Sequestration and Funding Cuts

Federal agencies have started feeling the impact of the across-the-board spending cuts, known as sequestration, that went into effect March 1. Plans to furlough employees and cut programs are underway at many of the agencies charged with issuing and enforcing public health and safety standards. For the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), these additional funding cuts will further drain already decreasing resources and impair the agency's ability to protect our air, water, and health.

read in full

Undoing Sequestration

Across-the-board federal spending cuts, called "sequestration," have begun. What can be done to undo this damaging budget policy? One of the primary barriers to fixing sequestration is that it is playing out much like the metaphor of a boiling frog. According to the metaphor, if a frog is placed in a pan of boiling water, it will quickly jump out. But if it is placed in a pan of water that is room temperature, and then only slowly heated to a boil, the frog will not notice the danger and will be slowly cooked to death.

read in full

Sequestration Standoff

As March 1 approaches, across-the-board federal spending cuts, called sequestration, appear almost certain to occur. Republicans and Democrats are not negotiating to resolve the looming crisis. Neither seems sufficiently motivated to compromise.

read in full

New Bowles-Simpson Deficit Plan Emphasizes Spending Cuts

Feb 21, 2013 by Patrick Lester

Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs of a presidentially appointed bipartisan commission that failed to reach agreement on a deficit reduction plan in 2010, released a new plan on Feb. 19 to reduce the federal deficit by an additional $2.4 trillion over the next ten years. Most of the proposed new deficit reduction is achieved through spending cuts.

read in full

Democrats Release Plans to Prevent Sequestration

Feb 15, 2013 by Patrick Lester

On Feb. 14, congressional Democrats unveiled legislation that would cancel across-the-board spending cuts, called sequestration, which are currently scheduled to begin on March 1. The two bills include $120 billion in alternative spending cuts and revenue increases to offset the cost of canceling sequestration.

read in full

The Wall Street Sales Tax

As policymakers in Washington, DC continue to debate our nation's budget priorities, some of the options currently being considered are cuts in Social Security benefits, education and health programs, important investments in transportation infrastructure and health research, and anti-poverty programs, among many others.

read in full

CBO Report Reveals Economic Damage Done by Deficit Reduction

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), released Feb. 5, reveals that the federal budget deficit is now on track to drop below $1 trillion for the first time in several years. It is expected to drop further for several more years without any additional efforts at deficit reduction. However, this drop has been bought at a significant cost, including substantially reduced economic growth and higher unemployment.

read in full

Latest Economic Report Highlights Dangers of Further Austerity

Feb 1, 2013 by Patrick Lester

The latest official estimate of U.S. economic growth, released Jan. 30 by the U.S. Department of Commerce, has provided further proof that budgetary austerity in the midst of a weak economic recovery makes little sense. Despite this, with Congress still considering further budget cuts and across-the-board cuts (called sequestration) scheduled to begin on March 1, there is little evidence that federal policymakers are aware of how much damage they may be doing to the economy.

read in full

Congress Sets Stage for Second Budget Showdown

On Jan. 23, the House of Representatives sidestepped a battle over the debt ceiling and prepared itself instead for a coming fight over sequestration and a possible government shutdown. The No Budget, No Pay Act (H.R. 325), passed by the House, suspends the debt ceiling until May 18 and ties congressional pay to passage of budget resolutions in the House and Senate by April 15.

read in full

CEO of Alcoa Embraces Regulations as Good for Business, the Economy

Jan 18, 2013 by Katie Greenhaw

The fact that public protections can increase productivity, spur innovation, and encourage creation of new markets is not news to us – or, apparently, to business leaders. New standards can create incentives to improve technologies and manufacturing processes

read in full