Check out this New York Times article on the possible banning of privately funded travel.
This could have impacts for nonprofits, which we discuss more extensively in our Watcher article on the new lobby reform bills before Congress.
At their recent annual convention, delegates of the National Farm Bureau Federation voted in approval to change the organization's position on the estate tax. The organization now supports raising the estate tax exemption to $10 million (indexed to inflation), from the current $2 million. The Bureau voted on this issue because members of Congress had been pressuring the organization to state what level of exemption its members would accept. At this point, it is not clear what specific tax rate they support.
The release of the President's budget is less than a month away, and Treasury Secretary John Snow has made it clear the budget will "call for sacrifices, no doubt about it." Like last year's "tough budget," this year's slicing and dicing is an attempt by the administration both to appear tough on spending, as well as help them pare the down the deficit -- a whopping $318 billion last year -- even further.
Be sure to check out the latest issue of our biweekly newsletter, The Watcher. Reg policy articles this time:
White House 'Guidance' to Burden Agencies, Delay Information
White House Proposes Guidelines to Control Agency Risk Assessments
Bob Bauer's blog (More Soft Money HardLaw) has a very useful resource page with links to the pending lobby and ethics reform bills in Congress, and related Congressional floor statements and press releases.
To access this resource page click here
Although the Senate and House have both passed their separate versions of the tax reconciliation bill, Congress has yet to vote on and pass a final measure. One of the major differences between the two bills is that the House passed a two-year extension of low capital gains and dividends rates, while the Senate did not.
Guilty pleas by super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon, former key staffer of former-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, have put a spotlight on graft and corruption in Washington--and the obscene influence money exerts over politics today. Both Republican and Democratic leaders are now poised to offer "solutions" to this unseemly situation. These solutions, however, must do more than simply scratch the surface of this enormous problem. And dramatic changes to this dysfunctional dynamic of Washington politics are unlikely unless the public gets engaged.
President Bush issued Executive Order 13392 on Dec. 14 to help improve the processing of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Open government advocates, however, argue the order is no substitute for legislation in the Senate that would solve many of the underlying problems with FOIA.
Executive Order 13392 requires that each federal agency:
create a high level chief FOIA officer in each agency;
conduct an internal assessment of FOIA service problems and develop a work plan for making improvements;
