Reports

Controlled Unclassified Information: Recommendations for Information Control Reform

Controlled Unclassified Information: Recommendations for Information Control Reform shines a light on how government withholds unclassified information from the American people and offers recommendations on how to balance the need to protect sensitive materials with the duty to disclose information to the public.

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Building a Better Government Performance System

OMB Watch partnered with Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute and Accenture's Institute for Public Service to craft consensus recommendations for the next president related to improving government performance measurement systems. The project convened a wide range of policy experts, academics, government representatives, and others to explore areas of agreement in a very disparate field.

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How Nonprofits Helped America Vote: 2008

How Nonprofits Helped America Vote: 2008 showcases specific examples to illustrate how nonprofit organizations stepped to the plate to help voters and communities. The report describes nonprofit efforts to make the election process seamless from state to state and to promote fair environments for constituents to vote in the 2008 election.

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After Midnight

The Bush administration rushed out a host of problematic regulations in its final months. Many of these "midnight" regulations actually represent deregulatory actions that weaken or eliminate safeguards protecting health, safety, the environment, and the public's general welfare. This report, produced by OMB Watch and the Center for American Progress, explores how those rules came to be and what the Obama administration and Congress may be able to do about them.

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The Bush Legacy: An Assault on Public Protections

 This report shows that attacks on a variety of common-sense regulations over the past eight years have taken a great toll on the United States. Though not intended to serve as a comprehensive record of every anti-regulatory effort by the Bush administration, this report uses clear examples to document a wide range of activity. The storytelling style of the report, crafted by freelance writer and author Osha Gray Davidson, helps readers begin to understand how much damage has been done under the watch of George W. Bush and his vice president, Richard B. Cheney.

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Moving Toward a 21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda

OMB Watch convened a group of hundreds of individuals and organizations from across the political spectrum to put together recommendations on government openness, information, and other transparency issues. The recommendations stress the need for the Obama administration and Congress to move the federal government's information disclosure and sharing policies and processes into the 21st century, which includes the efficient, effective use of modern Internet technologies. The recommendations fall into three categories: National Security and Secrecy; Usability of Information; and Creating a Government Environment for Transparency. The group also lifted up a number of the recommendations as issues the Obama administration should tackle during its first 100 days.

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Advancing the Public Interest Through Regulatory Reform

To develop a set of critical regulatory reform recommendations for the president and Congress, OMB Watch convened a steering committee of regulatory experts from the public interest, labor, small business, and other communities. The steering committee worked to put forth a consensus document that reflects what it sees as the most important regulatory process issues for the president-elect and Congress. Ideas raised with President Obama and congressional leaders fall into a number of categories: Improving the quality of regulations; protecting scientific integrity within agencies; ensuring agency accountability; effective implementation and enforcement of regulations; bringing more transparency to the regulatory process; and increasing public participation in federal rulemaking. The steering committee also highlighted those items that should be addressed during Obama's first 100 days in the White House and the first 100 days of the 111th Congress.

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Collateral Damage: How the War on Terror Hurts Charities, Foundations, and the People They Serve

This paper is the result of collaborative research conducted by OMB Watch and Grantmakers Without Borders. We believe charities in the United States and throughout the world play a key role in democratic systems by giving citizens a vehicle for participation, providing tools and information that help people get involved, and delivering assistance to those in need. Since Sept. 11, 2001, we have witnessed counterterrorism programs erode the freedom and ability of charities and their funders to carry out their missions and improve the lives of the world's people. We hope this paper will serve as a resource for charities, foundations, and policymakers as they seek to understand the impacts that counterterrorism measures have on charities and as they look to develop more equitable policies that protect the inherent rights of charities and the people the organizations serve.

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Bridging the Tax Gap: The Case for Increasing the IRS Budget

TaxGap A significant and pernicious problem facing the nation is the tax gap, the difference between what is owed in taxes and what is paid. Estimated to be over $300 billion annually, the tax gap represents an enormous revenue loss for the government. This lack of revenue often causes unnecessary increases in annual deficits and the national debt, increasing national interest payments and adding pressure to cut vital government services. Unfortunately, much of the gap must be made up eventually by honest taxpayers through higher taxes and by beneficiaries of federal investments through service cuts. Bridging the Tax Gap: The Case for Increasing the IRS Budget illustrates some of the factors that perpetuate the tax gap and offers practical solutions to the problem.

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Overcaution and Confusion

PACI2 Overcaution and Confusion: The Impact of Ambiguous IRS Regulation of Political Activities by Charities and the Potential for Change contextualizes the points of consensus and debate that emerged during an Aug. 3, 2007, panel discussion on the potential for establishing a bright-line rule for the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) enforcement of the prohibition against partisan intervention in elections by charities and religious organizations.

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