Publications :  The Watcher :  OMB Watcher Vol. 5: 2004 :  April 5, 2004 Vol.5, No.7 : 

In This Issue

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No Budget Resolution (04/05/2004)
Whether or not tax cuts must be offset - that is the question.

Office of Management and Budget May Be the Only Government Programs' Evaluator (04/05/2004)
First, GPRA, then PART, and now PAR - government performance measures continue to multiply. More alarming is their morphing from bipartisan efforts that had a role for both the executive and legislative branches; to performance measures dictated by the executive branch in order to control spending to support political objectives.

Economy and Jobs Watch: Jobs finally rebound, but remain 6.6 million below trend; unemployment rise (04/05/2004)
The economy added 308,000 new jobs in March, announced the Labor Department on Friday. The strong jobs number came largely due to the service sector which added 230,000 new jobs, while the manufacturing sector continues to struggle with no net new jobs in March.

Who Pays What Taxes? (04/05/2004)
Two new reports highlight just who is paying taxes. One report shows 61 percent of U.S. controlled corporations paid no taxes between 1996 and 2000.

The Bush Administration's Openness Policy Serves Self Interests (04/05/2004)
The Bush administration is using classification selectively for political purposes evidenced by its inconsistent decisions on declassifying documents, according to a recent Washington Post article. In the article, critics outline a pattern of document classification that supports the administration's positions and the inappropriate classification of information that contradicts the President's positions.


FEC Gets Record Number of Comments in Rulemaking (04/05/2004)
Last week the Federal Election Commission announced that it has received 30,000 comments on its proposed rule to redefine what is a regulated political committee. With more than a week to go before the comment period ends, the controversy on the expansive proposed rule will set a FEC record for most public input on an issue. The proposed rule could expand FEC regulation in ways that would limit genuine issue advocacy by nonprofits.

To download OMB Watch’s comments click here. More information is available at www.nonprofit advocacy.org and at www.ombwatch.org. To send your own comments to the FEC see OMB Watch’s Action Alert.


Effort to Revive CARE Act Fails (04/05/2004)
Lack of offsets to pay for the costs of new charitable tax deductions and disputes over the rules for a conference committee have appeared to doom an effort by Sens. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) to attach the CARE Act to S. 1637, the Jumpstart Our Business Strength Act (JOBS), which deals with extraterritorial income.



New Round of Funding for Compassion Capital Fund (04/05/2004)
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced a new round of competition for $7 million in grants to intermediary organizations to provide technical assistance and sub-awards for capacity building to faith-based and community organizations.

More Complaints Filed Against Congressman DeLay (04/05/2004)
Democracy 21 joins Common Cause and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy in their efforts to get House members to file a complaint to the ethics committee against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). Democracy 21, like the two organizations before it, wrote a letter to all House members asking for their help in getting the House ethics committee to investigate charges that DeLay’s charity Celebrations for Children Inc., was created as a “scheme…to misuse a tax-exempt charitable organization…for his own purposes and to finance his political operations at the Republican national convention this summer.”

Welfare Re-Authorization Fails in the Senate (04/05/2004)
The Senate failed to pass the reauthorization of the 1996 Welfare Reform bill last week. Regardless of the bill’s noted importance, members of the Senate could not agree on many issues within the bill.

Republican Leadership Threatens More Regulatory Rollbacks (04/05/2004)
Continuing the rollbacks of environmental, health, and safety protections will be foremost on the congressional agenda if President Bush and congressional Republicans are re-elected in November, vows House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

Weakening of Overtime Rules Imminent as Controversy Rages (04/05/2004)
The Bush administration’s controversial effort to change the rules governing overtime pay, which could eliminate overtime rights for many workers, could be realized soon, although congressional Democrats and labor groups continue to try to stop the new rules before they can be issued.


Court Orders Release of Additional Energy Task Force Documents (04/05/2004)
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman ordered several federal agencies to release documents related to Vice President Cheney's energy task force April 1. The administration previously withheld the documents under the guise that agency employees could claim special confidentially privileges while working for the task force. The court order represents another victory for right to know and government accountability.

Government Web Secrecy Doesn't Provide Security (04/05/2004)
A recent report by the RAND Corporation reveals that information scrubbed from government websites after the Sept. 11 attacks were unnecessary and unproductive in protecting against terrorism. Many government agencies have removed extensive amounts of information from their websites on the remote chance it could be misused by terrorists. The RAND report establishes that the agencies' approach of viewing information only as a threat and not considering the benefits is erroneous.

White House Denies Meddling with Science (04/05/2004)
John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a detailed rebuttal to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) that accuses the administration of manipulating scientific information for political purposes.

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