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

Administration Targets High-Risk IT Projects

Aug 24, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

The Obama administration released yesterday a list of 26 mission-critical information technology (IT) projects that will receive immediate attention from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) because they "have experienced problems such as significant cost increases or schedule delays." This reassessment process of IT projects, which is part of the administration's reform-minded 2012 budget process and their larger Accountable Government Initiative, seeks to set the programs straight before they waste any more taxpayer funds.

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Bad Idea: Stand up a Private Army in Iraq to Take the Place of Departing U.S. Forces

Aug 23, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

The pullout of the final U.S. combat brigade from Iraq last week was the penultimate step in the military's withdrawal from the country at the end of 2011. At that time, the State Department, utilizing a large number of private security contractors (PSC), will take responsibility for performing many of the tasks the Department of Defense (DOD) has been carrying out. Problem is, State isn't very good at overseeing contractors.

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Schools Hesitant to Spend State Aid Money

Aug 19, 2010 by Sam Rosen-Amy

In Wednesday's New York Times, there was an interesting coda to one of our recent Watcher articles: despite receiving large amounts of money from the recently passed state aid bill, school districts are not acting quickly to rehire fired teachers. The worry is next fiscal year might see even larger budget gaps, necessitating another, larger, round of firings. So the school districts would rather save the money, to try to stave off what could be an even worse FY 2011, and in the process, are potentially hamstringing any positive effects of the state aid bill.

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Karzai Outlaws Private Security Contractors in Afghanistan

Aug 18, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

On Monday, the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that all security contractor firms would have to end operations in the country within the next four months, allowing employees to either join the Afghan police force or look for another line of work. Successful implementation of Karzai's order, though difficult, could radically transform the debate around the use of private security contractors (PSCs) in war zones.

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Congress Sends Aid to States, Gaps Remain

With all of the attention placed on federal budget problems, it can be easy to forget that state budgets are facing similar troubles. Since almost every state has some form of a balanced budget requirement, states can be extremely susceptible to swings in the economy, and the recent recession is a perfect example. In an effort to help ameliorate the states' fiscal situation, President Obama recently signed into law a $26 billion state aid bill passed by Congress in a rare August session. The bill, which includes $10 billion in education funding and $16 billion for state Medicaid programs, is expected to save some 300,000 jobs. Still, it pales in comparison to the actual size of the fiscal problem facing the states.

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Commentary: Federal Debt and Its Implications for Economic Stability

When the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) produced a brief in late July on the nation’s debt levels and the risk they present to the economy, those pushing for immediate deficit reduction jumped on the report as evidence that the U.S. is about to go over a financial cliff. Upon closer inspection, though, the greatest threat facing the country is still the Great Recession and the lingering effects thereof.

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Tax Cuts for the Rich will Make Rich People Richer

Aug 16, 2010 by Craig Jennings

Letting the '01-'03 tax cuts for upper-income households expire may or may not adversely affect job creation*, but at the end of the day, it's important to keep in mind that these tax cuts for the rich are just another means to transfer large piles of cash to people who already make boatloads of it.

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Standard Coding Next Big Step in Contracting Oversight

Aug 11, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

Testifying before a Senate subcommittee last week about efforts to deploy a sophisticated fraud-prevention tool developed through the Recovery Act across all federal agencies, a government official told senators that the "biggest impediment" to successful utilization of the technology is "the lack of a...governmentwide award number system." Adoption of such a system, which would provide a universal code to government contract awards, could transform federal contracting oversight.

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CBO Monthly Budget Review, July 2010

Aug 10, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its Monthly Budget Review (MBR) for July. The review provides an assessment of the federal budget through the first ten months of fiscal year 2010. According to the CBO, we have racked up a roughly $1.2 trillion deficit so far, which is about $90 billion less than the deficit last year at this time.

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Expiration of High-Income Tax Cuts Probably OK for the Economy

Aug 9, 2010 by Craig Jennings

As the months slide by and the sun begins to set on the Bush Tax Cuts, a feisty debate in Congress is ensuing on which tax cuts should be kept and which should be left to expire. Although there seems to be universal support for maintaining the middle class tax cuts, there are proponents of retaining the tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 (i.e. the 33% and 35% brackets). They allege that letting these cuts expire would stifle job creation.

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