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

CAP's Strategy for Cutting Poverty in Half over 10 Years

Apr 27, 2007 by Dana Chasin

A report released on April 25 by the Center for American Progress (CAP) Task Force on Poverty examines the problem and consequences of poverty in America. According to the report:

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House to Investigate Security Breaches at USDA

Apr 27, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

In response to the disclosure of personal information and other security problems at the United States Department of Agriculture recently, the House Agriculture Committee is holding a hearing next week to review the USDA's release of program beneficiaries' Social Security numbers and other problems with the agencies information systems. The hearing will be on Wednesday, May 3, at 1:00 pm in the Longworth House Office Building, room 1300.

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Congress Passes Troops' Funding; Now, the Veto Watch

Apr 26, 2007 by Dana Chasin

The Senate has now voted, 51-46, to approve the $142.2 billion conference report (H.R. 1591; H Rept 110-107) fully funding the president's record-sized emergency supplemental war-funding request -- but with timetable goals for American soldiers' withdrawal from Iraq and billions of dollars in spending beyond his initial request. The House passed the conference report last night, and now it goes on to the president, who has promised repeatedly to veto it.

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Winners and Losers in Earmark Dollar Distribution

Apr 26, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Top Five Over- and Under "Earmarked" States (Rank of Earmarked Dollars Received/Population, 2005) Over-Earmarked

1 Alaska (6/47)
2 Hawaii (14/42)
3 West Virginia (10/37)
4 Alabama (9/23)
5 Maryland (8/19)

Under-Earmarked

1 Georgia (24/9)
2 Indiana (30/15)
3 Colorado (36/22)
4 North Carolina (21/10)
5 New Jersey (22/11)

Earmark Rankings: USA Today, 4/26/07

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Baucus Sees Small Business Tax Package in Supp. 2.0

Apr 25, 2007 by Dana Chasin

After Congress adopts the minimum wage small business tax package -- Small Business and Work Opportunity Tax Act of 2007 -- as part of the war spending supplemental conference report, and the president vetoes it, what will become of it? Will it be part of a post-veto "Supp. 2.0"?

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Attention, Deficit

Apr 25, 2007 by Matt Lewis

An interesting debate on deficits has sprung up...

Jared Bernstein argues against a narrow focus on balanced budgets.
Greg Anrig's response
For more on this critical debate, see the materials from this recent EPI event, our summary of it in The Watcher, and Dana's reaction.

UPDATE: Brad Plumer has a good take on the EPI event, and Ezra Klein responds. OK, that's enough.

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Treasury Secretary Tired of Social Security 'Solitaire'

Apr 24, 2007 by Dana Chasin

We've sung the sad song of Secretary Paulson before. At a Washington press briefing yesterday, he confessed, referring to Social Security reform:

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Supplemental 2.0 -- Short-Term War Funding?

Apr 24, 2007 by Dana Chasin

What does Congress do for a yes-able encore, once Bush vetoes its full-funding of his record-sized war request? On the House side, senior Democrats are warming to the idea of passing a set of smaller war funding packages, akin to a sequence of CRs, providing money for as little as two months at a time. Yesterday, House Defense Appropriations chair John Murtha (D-PA) said it is likely the next step will be a two-month supplemental bill... but Senate leaders have yet to signal support for such an approach.

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Deficits: Who Are the Real Maniacs?

Apr 24, 2007 by Dana Chasin

At the Agenda for Shared Prosperity's "Beyond Balanced Budget Mania" forum earlier this month, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz gave a much-discussed 30,000-mile aerial perspective on how to look at and evaluate deficits and what we are buying with them:

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