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Home :  Federal Budget & Tax : 
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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Congress Abandons Fiscal Responsibility

OMB Watch released a statement yesterday afternoon harshly criticizing the Democratically control Congress and the president for abandoning fiscal responsibility in the final hours of 2007 after they entire year was spent adhering to or attempting to adhere to righting our nation's fiscal course. From the statement:

Adding insult to a year of fiscal policy injuries, Congress has abandoned fiscal responsibility by waiving pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules in order to pass a one-year patch to the alternative minimum tax (AMT) without offsets. This tax cut adds another $50 billion to an already expanding deficit next year, and will give fewer options for our children and grandchildren to seek solutions to the problems of tomorrow.

While I expect as much from President Bush, this is a huge disappointment from the new Democratic majority in Congress whose number one promise was to uphold pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules. So much for promises:

This vote is particularly disappointing as Democrats have gone to great lengths this year to comply with PAYGO rules, particularly on spending. From student loan reforms to expansions of the State Children's Health Insurance Program and Food Stamps, Democrats have negotiated the turbulent fiscal waters of the federal budget responsibly, diligently, even courageously. That is why at this point, after all that work and sacrifice, the compromises and the concessions needed to construct balanced solutions to the AMT problem, it is unacceptable for them to abandon their stated principles of fiscal responsibility because they fear Americans will not accept paying up front for the services and benefits the country demands.

As the statement makes clear, there is plenty of blame to go around in Washington for this policy failure. What an awful way to end 2007.





Posted by Adam Hughes, 12:49:17 PM



Tuesday, December 18, 2007

IRS Budget Cut Below Already Insufficient Levels

The omnibus appropriations bill passed by the House last night contains 3,500 pages and over $516 billion in spending. Yet with all that space (and money), Congress could not find enough room for even their own priorities from earlier this year for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Specifics of the IRS's funding take from the omnibus show the House has included $2.15 billion for taxpayer services, down slightly from the $2.155 proposed earlier this year, $4.78 billion for enforcement (down from $4.93 billion) and $3.68 billion for operations (down from $3.77 billion). What's more, the House has backed away from a requirement for the IRS to develop a strategic plan to address the tax gap. The total IRS budget request ($10.89 billion) is $203 million below even President Bush's request!. What is going on here?

So, just to review, despite a year in which congressional hearings revealed that the IRS is underfunded, runs a dangerous and wasteful privatization program, and has no strategic plan for addressing the tax gap, Congress decided to give it less money, allow the privatization program to continue, and let the IRS off the hook for developing a strategic plan.

And I wonder why people don't believe in government...





Posted by Adam Hughes, 03:15:35 PM



$515.7 Billion Omnibus Measure Approved by House

With two votes, the House voted to approve $484.7 billion in domestic discretionary and emergency spending (253-154) and $31 billion for spending on the conflict in Afghanistan (206-201).

The Senate will take up the bill today. It is expected that it will tack on about $40 billion in additional war funding. Unlike the House version, which prohibited any of the $31 billion war supplemental to be spent on operations in Iraq, the Senate's $70 billion war spending measure would fund both wars.



Posted by Craig Jennings, 09:32:50 AM



Monday, December 17, 2007

Bush Says His Version of Spending Compromise Might Not Work

President Bush suggested tonight that Congress might want to pass a year-long continuing resolution instead of the compromise bill he forced them to develop. The Hill reports:

If the Congress can't get the job done — in other words, those jet fumes'll start to be moving out … pretty soon here, later on this week — if they can't get the job done, then I've got a suggestion for them, and just pass a one-year continuing resolution.

Seriously? It seems as though the president has gone off the deep end. Is it 2008 yet?





Posted by Adam Hughes, 09:36:03 PM



Congress Close to Deal on Extension of SCHIP?

CQ Today reported ($) this afternoon the Senate is close to a deal on extending SCHIP into 2008. According to the article, a bill is being written to delay cuts taking effect Jan. 1 to Medicare physician pay rates that would include an extension of the SCHIP program. From CQ:

The package also is expected to include a funding extension of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, but it's uncertain for how long. There appeared to be agreement earlier on an extension until 2009, but the Republican aide cautioned that the situation was "fluid."

House Democrats have been pushing to extend SCHIP funding until September 2008, in order to force another debate on what they see as a winning political issue. A extension until 2009 would certainly make the legislation more palatable to Republicans, however.

SCHIP is set to expire this Friday if Congress does not act to extend it further.



Posted by Adam Hughes, 06:26:38 PM



Dems, Bush Strike a Deal on Budget

The Democrats struck a deal over the weekend on the 11 remaining appropriations bills, coming close to President Bush's $933 billion total spending cap, but shifting funding within spending accounts to fund more domestic priorities. As a result, $6 billion was moved out of defense, foreign aid, and military construction to fund domestic priorities such as Amtrak, Veteran's programs, medical research, low-income energy assistance, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, and other important support programs.

This compromise seems to be about the best that could be expected. It still will cut some programs after adjusting for inflation and population growth, but it is likely better than a long-term continuing resolution.

Wash Post Democrats Tighten Spending in Latest Version of Bill
AP: Budget Bill Reverses Bush Cuts
NY Times: Democrats, Staying Within Spending Limit, Draft Budget with Domestic Emphasis





Posted by Adam Hughes, 09:28:02 AM



Friday, December 14, 2007

Conservatives Killed The FDA

Greg Anrig has a great article on how the conservative approach to budgeting and regulation is to blame for FDA's recent troubles.

It's possible to read all 300-plus horrifying pages of a new Food and Drug Administration subcommittee report describing the agency's slow asphyxiation by prolonged budgetary constraints without learning who is responsible for its decline.

Subcommittee member and attorney Peter Barton Hutt, who served as FDA chief counsel during the Nixon and Ford administrations, pointed his finger at the American public in his own supplemental contribution to the report: "It is not a problem caused by partisan politics. The administrations of President Clinton and President Bush have been equally unresponsive to FDA's needs. ... The country cannot withhold the requisite scientific resources from FDA and then complain that the agency is incapable of meeting our expectations."

But if everyone is to blame, then no one is. Recent fiascoes like the Melamine-tainted pet food and lead-laced Mattel toys, both imported from China, are sure to continue in the absence of meaningful accountability. The truth is that the carnage described in the report is as much a conservative-movement accomplishment as the creation of the FDA was a great progressive-era triumph.

There's more where this came from. Check out his book, The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 04:06:41 PM



Democrats: Listen To EJ Dionne

EJ Dionne says the biggest thing wrong with the Democrats is that they haven't been good at blaming Republicans for causing legislative gridlock.

What's the alternative to internecine Democratic finger-pointing of the sort that made the front page of yesterday's Post? The party's congressional leaders need to do whatever they have to do to put this year behind them. Then they need to stop whining. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should put aside any ill feelings and use the Christmas break to come up with a joint program for 2008.

They could start with the best ideas from their presidential candidates in areas such as health care, education, cures for the ailing economy and poverty reduction. Agree to bring the same bills to a vote in both houses. Try one more time to change the direction of Iraq policy. If Bush and the Republicans block their efforts, bring all these issues into the campaign. Let the voters break the gridlock.

If Democrats don't make the 2008 election about the Do-Nothing Republicans, the GOP has its own ideas about whom to hold responsible for Washington's paralysis. And if House and Senate Democrats waste their time attacking each other, they will deserve any blame they get next fall.

Sounds about right. A basic flaw in the 2007 agenda has been the emphasis on legislation that seems middle-of-the-road enough to pass. But Democrats will achieve few substantive policy changes as long as the hard right retains and recklessly uses the power to obstruct. It's probably time to lay down some serious markers and go to the mat for them, just in case.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 11:04:23 AM



Federal Government Funded for One More Week

Congress, Thursday evening, passed a one-week continuing resolution (HJ Res 69) that funds operations of the federal government at 2007 levels through next Friday (December 21).

Meanwhile, rampant speculation on the shape of an omnibus measure continues.



Posted by Craig Jennings, 10:21:21 AM



Thursday, December 13, 2007

A Premature Post-Mortem On The Budget

Perhaps it's too soon to write a post-mortem on the budget debate. Particularly because the Coalition on Human Needs just put out a good summary of how the Bush cuts would impact people, and since they're asking for advocates to call Congress in support of human needs programs.

But here's one anyway. The best message was the "Republicans don't want to to spend money on program X, but they'll spend obscene amounts on Iraq." It probably did a lot of damage. It clarified the hypocrisy and misplaced priorities of their stance and smeared it with the taint of one of the least popular decisions they've made.

But I never heard, or came up with, a good message in favor of the Democrats' budget proposals. Basically we'd trot out some program they knew everybody liked and say "look, support our entire budget because we want to fund popular program X." I think that message was a lot less compelling, judging by the lack of a strong base of support for the Democratic proposals.

Basically, nobody's going to the mat over these budget proposals. Not the appropriations committees, not the leadership. I just don't think anybody's really holding their feet to the fire.

So one immediate thing to take away might be that a compelling critical message is insufficient, given that the hard right still wields considerable power over legislation and will most likely never be deterred willingly. Then again, solid messages on both fronts may not be enough. Next year might be even worse. The opposition, unfortunately, has probably been emboldened by their wins, and the good(er) guys are getting burned by looking "weak" in the press.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 02:28:43 PM



USASpending.gov Launched!

OMB has launched their website that will comply with the 2006 Coburn-Obama Federal Funding, Accountability, and Transparency Act (Transparency Act) today. You can visit it at www.usaspending.gov. OMB really needs to be commended for this site, for launching it two weeks before required under the legislation, and for their commitment to transparency.

For those of you who haven't been to the BudgetBlog before or have, but are still sleepy this morning, you might not notice that the government's website looks an awful lot like FedSpending.org, the site we launched in October, 2006. Well, that's because it basically is FedSpending.org, with a few design changes. As the Washington Post reported this morning, OMB Watch licensed FedSpending.org to OMB for use in compliance with the law (btw, the article is a great insight into the collaboration we've had with OMB over the past year). We will continue to operate FedSpending.org and add more advanced features that make the site easier to use and the data easier to understand. And we hope with a solid foundation, OMB will be able to make timely and eventually more accurate data available to the public through USASpending.gov.

Currently, there are difference between the sites. For instance, OMB will have more timely data as they plan to update the site every two weeks with new data (we currently update data twice a year). In addition, the government site does not have features and upgrades added to FedSpending.org in our last version release, including a mapping feature on all searches, creation of a streamlined and powerful SuperSearch for all advanced searching needs, and increased flexibility in getting data more quickly through expandable summary views.

I have been continually surprised and proud of the success of our endevor to make Federal spending information more available and understandable to the public through FedSpending.org. For it to now be the model for the government's efforts to do the same is feels even better.





Posted by Adam Hughes, 10:16:37 AM



Quick Updates: Budget and Tax Developments

Two developments yesterday that are impacting the 2007 congressional end game this month. First, Democrats appear to have reached a deal (i.e. caved) on FY 2008 appropriations: From BNA ($):

Democratic leaders agree in principle to try to meet President Bush's proposed spending target for the 2008 fiscal year, potentially setting aside one of the main stumbling blocks to a deal to wrap up a drawn-out fight over appropriations. However, the bill may not come up for consideration until next week. Despite the major concession by Democrats, other potential issues that could hinder a final agreement—short-term funding for the war in Iraq and various policy provisions—appear unresolved and a short-term continuing resolution is expected, to keep the government funded through Dec. 21

Also, the House has passed another fully paid-for, one-year AMT patch. Also from BNA ($):

The House, in defiance of the White House and Senate, passes a second revenue-neutral patch for the AMT, but also—for the second time—fails to secure a veto-proof margin. The bill passes by 226-193, with three Democrats crossing party lines to vote with Republicans in opposition to the bill.

So it looks right now that President Bush is getting his way on making cuts to important domestic investments that will negatively impact millions of Americans but make no difference in promoting fiscal responsibility and also may also get his way in actively opposing long-term fiscal responsibility by forcing Congress to pass another $50 billion tax cut that will add to the debt. It's dark times in Washington these days. Happy Holidays!



Posted by Adam Hughes, 09:26:47 AM



Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Budget Fight Is Probably Over; Cuts Expected

Speaker Pelosi is acceding to Bush's budget numbers, cutting $22 billion from the congressional budget proposal. We're asking that they spare human needs programs, but there's not much else to cut. They should be done crafting a bare-bones budget in the next day or so.

This is probably the worst of all possible worlds, probably worse than what's come of the SCHIP fight, considering this budget will mean service cuts, whereas SCHIP just won't be expanded. And there's something disturbing about the behavior of the appropriations committees, who are protecting their earmarks by making cuts in programmatic budget proposals. Why do they care more about (most likely) b.s. local pandering projects than the public interest?

And for more depressing news, President Bush is expected to veto the SCHIP bill today. (Update: This is non-news news, because everyone expected a veto, and the House doesn't have the votes to override the veto anyway.)



Posted by Matt Lewis, 02:05:16 PM



Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Obey Not In It for the Fight

As Dana mentioned in his post earlier this morning, House Appropriations Chair David Obey is abandoning a "split the difference" approach to passing a budget, because the president is sticking to his guns and insisting that any budget presented by Congress total less than his $933 billion "top line" figure. Obey is folding like a cheap suit acceding to Bush's harsh budget because he (and Congressional leadership) would rather not take a black eye for contributing to a shutdown of the federal government.

While I would like to think that Congress feels more than the political pain of a budget fiasco, I am not so certain that there's a whole lot of empathy for the millions of Americans that will be adversely affected by spending cuts in vital domestic programs. And honestly, I'm not sure how Congressional leadership is supposed make the proverbial lemonade here, but come on - lead!

Maybe it's too late to shift the rhetorical melee, but Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-WV) nails what should be the frame of this skirmish($):

It is extraordinary that the president would request an 11 percent increase for the Department of Defense, a 12 percent increase for foreign aid, and $195 billion of emergency funding for the war, while asserting that a 4.7 percent increase for domestic programs is fiscally irresponsible...


Posted by Craig Jennings, 11:25:47 AM



Monday, December 10, 2007

NYT: Social Security Backlog

The New York Times has a great article on backlogs in the Social Security Administration. Another example of where more funding and staffing is needed for government to do its job.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 12:19:22 PM



More Veto Threats For Appropriations

The White House is threatening to veto the latest appropriations gambit. What was it that Einstein said about people who try the same thing over and over again expecting a different result?

Update: Stan Collender's insights into what happened.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 10:03:49 AM



Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Administration Takes Heat Over FDA Plans

Following up on the release of a scathing report on FDA resources, Bush administration officials testified before Congress today on their plans to reform FDA.

Congress was none too pleased with their plan to shift FDA's resources towards inspecting "high-risk" food, which would mean that many types of food wouldn't be inspected as much. The Wall Street Journal:

The plan requests that Congress give the Food and Drug Administration authority to impose preventive controls on "high-risk" products. Specifically, these are foods "that have been associated with repeated instances of serious health problems or death to humans or animals from unintentional contamination."

The plan would make it more difficult for the FDA to impose such rules, said Mike Taylor, a food-safety expert who worked in the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Mr. Taylor testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which is reviewing the administration's plan.

"Essentially, this provision is a requirement that people be injured or even killed before the FDA can act," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.), who chairs the committee. "Such a requirement undermines the basic goal of preventing illness."

HHS secretary Mike Leavitt claimed that he's requested more money for all the agencies he manages, but didn't say how much he's requesting for FDA.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 03:28:28 PM



First Spinach, then Lead Toys, Now Mickey Mouse?

If you were slightly sick to your stomach after reading Matt's post yesterday about a drastically under funded Food and Drug Administration and the risks posed to consumer safety, don't think you can get away from that feeling by taking the kids to Disney World this winter for a tropical getaway. The Washington Post published a great investigative report on safety inspections of rides at theme/amusement parks and traveling carnivals. The article uncovered that the Federal oversite agency responsive for inspecting the rides - the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) - is dangerously overworked and under funded compared to its mission and lacks sufficient authority to adequately ensure public safety.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating traveling carnival rides, has not required Wisdom or any other ride manufacturer to make safety improvements in the past eight years. After a meeting last year on the Sizzler's troubled safety record, the agency asked only that ride operators pay "greater attention to safety."

The CPSC has no employee whose full-time job is to ensure the safety of such rides. The agency's 90 field investigators -- who oversee 15,000 products, work from their homes and live mostly on the East Coast -- are so overstretched that they frequently arrive at carnival accident scenes after rides have been dismantled.

As a result, critics say, supermarket shopping carts feature a more standardized child-restraint system than do amusement rides, which can travel as fast as 100 mph and, according to federal estimates, cause an average of four deaths and thousands of injuries every year.

Hmmmm...I feel like I've already seen this movie. What's worse, the article points out, is that the CPSC does not even have the authority to inspect larger, permanent parks - called "fixed-site" amusement parks - like Disney World and Six Flags:

State regulators and ride safety advocates say that this record [of lack of inspections and safety problems] is emblematic of wider problems at the CPSC, whose lagging efforts to keep unsafe toys and other children's products from the marketplace have created a public outcry and have brought intense congressional scrutiny. Rulemaking by the agency has decreased during the Bush administration, and its officials say that budget and staffing constraints have made the commission vulnerable to industry pressure to adopt voluntary standards, or, in the case of fixed-site amusement park rides, no federal regulation.

Despite Congress holding hearings on the CPSC and its budget and staffing issues, it is unclear if any change will come this year. With the appropriations process just about broken and Congress and the president continuing to argue over minute differences in funding, the CPSC continues to operate with inadequate resources and poor leadership. Enjoy your trip to Orlando.





Posted by Adam Hughes, 11:17:07 AM



Addressing A Potential Recession With Fiscal Policy

Economists Martin Feldstein and Mark Thoma go toe-to-toe on what to do about the recession that's on the horizon. They agree that fiscal policy is the most important part of the answer, though Thomas wants increased spending, while Feldstein wants tax cuts.

Right now, it looks like the next year in budget policy might be as bleak as this years. But everything could change if a recession hits or gets close to hitting and there are widespread calls for deploying fiscal policy. Then again, the anti-government alliance (President Bush-House/Senate conservatives) has shown in this year's budget debate that it still wields the power to obstruct, and they aren't known for changing their minds when circumstances are different.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 11:13:03 AM



Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Report Says FDA Dangerously Underfunded

Funding for the Food and Drug Administration is dangerously low, says a new report by three FDA advisors.

Barbara J. McNeil, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School and one of the report's authors, said she was stunned at the agency's sorry state.

"This was the first time that a group of people got together and really looked at all the areas that the F.D.A. has to cover," Dr. McNeil said. "We were shocked at the scope of its responsibilities, we were shocked at how little its resources have increased, and we were surprised at the conditions those in the F.D.A. had to work under."

Resource mismanagement may have made the E. coli scare earlier this year even worse.

The report notes that the agency's computer systems are aging and prone to breakdowns, "most recently during an E. coli food contamination investigation."

"Reports of product dangers are not rapidly compared and analyzed, inspectors' reports are still handwritten and slow to work their way through the compliance system, and the system for managing imported products cannot communicate with customs and other government systems," the report stated.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is demanding answers.

The report also comes on the heels of another report finding that inadequate funding reduced the capacity of the Mine Safety and Health Administation (MSHA), which probably contributed to the spate of recent mine distasters. An underfunded Consumer Product Safety Commission is catching flak for the same thing.

The promise of conservative, small government ideology is not being borne out. Indeed, it has made everything much worse. It feels like just a matter of time before the next underfunded agency fouls up something, which is pretty scary.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 05:00:21 PM



More Insight Into War Funding Debate

More on the war funding debate:

Congress has until mid-February before the Army will cease base operations and until March before the Marines takes similar steps, according to the Pentagon.

Because of the uncertainty, the Pentagon this month will send layoff notices to an unspecified number of civilian employees whose union agreements require 60 days advance notice; the layoffs would be effective next February and could apply to as many as 100,000 civilian employees and 100,000 civilian contractors.

The military is unlikely to stop working to protect troops against roadside bombs until the military is out of money entirely. The Pentagon would freeze less urgent programs before stalling the research effort.

It's misleading to shout from the rooftops that 100,000 DOD employees will be laid off unless Congress approves war funding immediately. But I guess it's standard procedure to issue layoff warnings.

Remind me, what are they fighting over?

Also important to note is that the Democratic proposal would likely have little to no practical effect if enacted into law.

The measure orders that troops start coming home in 30 days _ a requirement that Bush is already on track to meet as he begins reversing this year's troop buildup in Iraq. And the 2008 goal to have most troops home is a nonbinding goal, which means Bush could ignore it.

So it would not tie the hands of military commanders, as Bush suggests, nor would it force a change in strategy, as Democrats say.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 09:36:14 AM



Monday, December 03, 2007

The Filibuster and Fiscal Policy
The Modest Master of the Minority, Mitch McConnell

An article in yesterday New York Times, How the Filibuster Became the Rule illuminates the role of the rule in frustrating the efforts of a majority in Congress to complete work on the FY 2008 budget, which appears to have ground to a halt. A filibuster is a legislative tool to speak or debate on the floor or threaten to do so until there are enough votes -- 60, under U.S. Senate rules -- to invoke "cloture," bringing the debate to an end and allowing a vote on the underlying bill.

Senate rules allow filibusters and the efforts to overcome them are being used more frequently, and on more issues, than at any other point in history... The filibuster and the cloture motion will likely be employed even more as the Senate returns from its Thanksgiving recess on Monday to face a jam-packed calendar, motivated by the need to pass crucial annual budget bills to avoid a government shutdown.

A party with as few as 41 Senators and sufficient unity can stymie the majority's efforts to perform Congress' only constitutionally mandated responsibility: to provide the federal government with an annual budget, and the money to execute its laws.

A Senate minority leader couldn't be expected to claim credit for such a fiscal catastrophe. Instead, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says, "Congressional Democrats have neglected their duty on the 12 spending bills... and they're also about to slap millions of Americans with a middle-class tax hike better known as the A.M.T.," wiping his fingerprints off the current budget deadlock -- even though he knows the Democratic-controlled House has passed every single one of the twelve spending bills in this year's budget, as well as another bill to prevent "a middle-class tax hike better known as the A.M.T." Six of these bills are still stuck in the Senate.

McConnell's too modest to claim credit for the current fiscal stalement... or responsibility if there is a government shutdown. But would he forswear the filibuster for the forseeable future for the sake of fiscal responsibility? "I think we can stipulate once again for the umpteenth time that matters that have any level of controversy about it in the Senate will require 60 votes."



Posted by Dana Chasin, 06:24:59 PM



Profile In Spending: Trade and Globalization Assistance Act of 2007

I wanted to highlight the Trade and Globalization Assistance Act, yet another progressive spending bill that's bottled up in Congress and that the President has threatened to veto.

Its main provisions improve the unemployment insurance system and the trade adjustment assistance (TAA) program. The act costs about $9 billion over ten years- just a blip in the context of $3 trillion budgets, but a major deal for the workers who'd get better benefits. And it's a deficit-neutral bill, mostly paid for by renewing an unemployment insurance surtax.

The changes to the unemployment system are well summarized by this Coalition on Human Needs' report . Essentially, the federal government would provide stronger incentives to states to expand their programs. Low and middle-income workers in particular would benefit, as unemployment insurance could better help part-time workers and people who are employed sporadically. It may also help people who leave work for family reasons and workers in a retraining program.

As for TAA, the bill would expand coverage, increase benefits and provide more worker retraining. For a comprehensive summary, see the Congressional Budget Office's cost estimate.

TAA is a pretty small program. Workers are eligible for TAA if they can prove they lost their job due to trade. In FY 2006, only 120,000 workers were certified eligible, and only half of them received benefits. This bill will give the program a much-needed expansion, though there's room for more. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research has written that the program does nothing to reduce the downward pressure that trade puts on wages.

The House passed its version in late October, which the President threatened more or less to veto. The Senate's bill has been moving very slowly and looks less progressive than the House version. These programs' authorization expire on Dec. 31, so Congress will have to do something before the year is out.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 05:21:23 PM



Does the President Still Object to Providing Health Insurance to Low-Income Children?

We'll know soon.

BNA's Daily Tax RealTime (no link, sorry):

President Bush formally received Congress's second attempt to pass an extension of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (H.R. 3963) Nov. 30, requiring him to again decide whether to veto the bill over its inclusion of tobacco tax increases and program expansions.

The bill would pay for $35 billion in new spending in the bill by raising the federal tobacco excise tax for cigarettes to $1 per pack, from 39 cents per pack, and by sharply increasing the tax rates on cigars and other forms of tobacco.



Posted by Craig Jennings, 03:31:37 PM



There's Enough Money For The War To Last Until About March

The Defense Department keeps threatening to cut back program activities if a war supplemental isn't passed immediately. Here's more evidence that they're bluffing or lying. From page 3 of a Nov. 9th CRS report (emph. mine):

With passage of the regular FY2008 DOD Appropriations bill, DOD no longer has access to the $70 billion provided as a bridge fund in last year's appropriation.1 DOD can, however, case flow or finance war costs using funds in its regular appropriations. As in recent years, Congress faces pressure to provide war funding quickly so that the Army — the service facing the largest war costs — does not have to use this practice, which they argue disrupts their baseline program. The Army has not, however, provided evidence of any readiness problems arising from temporarily tapping regular appropriations to finance war costs (see section below on FY2007 experience). Based on DOD data, CRS, like the Army, estimates that the Army could continue to finance its war operating costs until mid-January 2008 by using funds slated to be used at the end of the year to cover war costs in the initial months of the fiscal year. If DOD transferred additional funds to the Army and the Army slowed its non-readiness related regular spending, as occurred last spring, CRS estimates that the Army could last about an additional month, or until mid to late-February 2008.

If Congress doesn't call their bluff, we're looking at a repeat of this May's war spending fight, which ended with the President getting everything he requested.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 01:39:12 PM




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