Today, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is having a hearing on the disclosure of tax expenditures. Not many people know it, but tax expenditures are a huge part of the federal budget. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the federal government spent $947 billion in tax expenditures just this year. And much of that enormous sum goes to programs that are ineffective, ineffecient, and highly regressive, according to the Congressional Research Service. Read our statement for the hearing here. We suggest that the S. 2590 database include some data on tax expenditures to help the public track them.