Federal Budget & Tax

Federal Budget & Tax: News Blog Background

Thursday, November 29, 2007

One-year Anniversary of FedSpending.org
New, improved version of website to be released

On its first anniversary when new features of OMB Watch's FedSpending.org site are to be unveiled, a story on big contractors receiving small earmarks appeared in Gov Exec. "Defense Bill Proves Lucrative for Biggest Firms demonstrates precisely the kind of databse search that helps citizens learn how the government is spending their money -- searches facilitated by FedSpending.org's upgrade.

The upgraded site incorporates major functionality improvements, including the addition of a mapping feature on all searches, creation of a streamlined and powerful SuperSearch for all advanced searching needs, and increased flexibility in retrieving more extensive summary data through expandable summary tables.

The Gov Exec story includes the results of a search for the top 20 recipients of earmarks in the 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill. Looking at the results, it turns out, sadly, to be no news at all -- except, as the article points out, that Halliburton somehow failed to make the list.

There is ongoing debate about the economic impact of federal tax cuts and spending. Some -- particularly conservative commentators -- tend toward the view that government taxation and expenditures remove dollars from the private economy, unduly restricting growth. If that is the case, these commentators will be dismayed to see how much money the government is taking out of economic circulation and lavishing on recipients who have become dependent on government largesse.

Matt Lewis of the OMB Watch Federal Fiscal Policy team, after reviewing this list below, made this astute observation: "The government doesn't know how to spend money, that is for sure."

Posted by Dana Chasin, 11:42:31 AM

Friday, November 16, 2007

Would You Do Business With Lawbreakers?

Interesting article in the Washington Post earlier this week about a new investigation that is starting to develop a bit of a stir in Washington. Seems there are thousands of health-care providers who owe billions of dollars in federal taxes, but who continue to be paid by the Medicaid program - the health-care program for the poor. This came to light after a Government Accountability Office report was delivered to Congress this Wednesday.

When I saw this, it reminded me of another GAO investigation I remember from earlier this year that found a similar problem with the Medicare program (see our coverage of that report from last March). What is similar between these two reports (aside from the tax cheaters) is that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) - the government agency responsible for implementing these two programs - claims there is nothing they can do about this.

To a certain extent, they might be right. Because of restrictions in law, CMS does not have explicit authority to deny health care providers from participating in either Medicare or Medicaid if they owe tax debts. In most cases, it would be illegal for the IRS to disclose those debts to the CMS - so they couldn't screen providers out anyway. The IRS can use a program called the Federal Payment Levy Program to satisfy tax debts by seizing some of the money paid to federal contractors, but Medicare officials have choosen not to participate in that program (this should probably change). But even that program won't help Medicaid. Medicaid payments are disbursed by various state agencies, and the IRS does not have a mechanism set up to automatically deduct money from those payments.

These are all valid points, but doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything about it. The Federal government should not be conducting business or making payments (either federal assistance or contract payments) to individuals or entities who owe taxes to the government. Period. Hopefully Congress will take some steps to clear up the obstacles preventing the IRS, CMS, and other government agencies from working together to streamline payments to health care providers so the government can collect the revenues that are due.

Posted by Adam Hughes, 02:46:08 PM

Dems Backing Away From Backing Away From Transparency!

Well, good news came in late last night as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) announced he struck a deal with House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Olver (D-MA) to remove language that would prohibit the publication of Federal agency budget justifications (See my post last night for more info).

This is fantastic news - congrats to Sen. Coburn for standing up for transparency. You can read his statement released last night on his website.

Posted by Adam Hughes, 10:30:18 AM

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Dems Backing Away From Transparency?

Remember when the Democrats came to power earlier this year and promised to end the culture of corruption in Washington? Then remember when they passed a fairly significant lobbying and ethics reform bill? Ok, then what is going on here - Roll Call: Earmarks in, Reforms out of Trans-HUD Measure

Roll Call reported today on some disturbing news - that the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD) appropriations bill has include earmarks that have not been disclosed yet under earmark transparency rules. In total, 18 earmarks worth $24 million were included in the conference report for the bill. The House Rules Committee website claims the vast majority of these new earmarks are for relatively benign projects.

Yikes. Let's go through this. First off, who is deciding the relative benign-ness of these projects? Maybe Duke Cunningham thought the earmarks he was including as paybacks to companies who bribed him were "relatively benign" too? Wouldn't it be better to let everyone see them from the beginning and let an open process decide their benigninivity?

Second, if the vast majority are relatively benign, what are the ones that are not benign? Shouldn't those be excluded until they can be properly reviewed?

That's not even the worst of the news in the Roll Call article. The T-HUD bill also includes language that prohibits federal agencies from disclosing their "budget justification" documents to any committee in Congress other than the appropriations committees before the May 31 after the president's budget is released. I assume this would mean those agencies could not make these documents public either, as many of them do now. All this comes after OMB Watch joined with the National Taxpayers Union and 52 other organizations last year to strongly support the publication of these documents and we were ultimately successful as OMB agreed to voluntarily publish the budget justifications.

The fact that there are attempts moving forward to clamp down on access to this information is truly unfortunate. What happened to the cleanest, most open Congress in history?

Posted by Adam Hughes, 06:00:26 PM

StateSpending.Org

The latest Progressive States dispatch highlights a fascinating report on transparency in state government spending. The report, by Good Jobs First, evaluates each state's websites and their disclosure of subsidies, contracts, and lobbying. Each state gets a ranking- check out the report to see where yours ends up.

The report shows that there's a big need for more disclosure on the state level. Hopefully sites like FedSpending.org, which will soon have a government-run counterpart, can serve as a model for states to follow.

Posted by Matt Lewis, 04:35:23 PM

Bush Attempts To Secure His Legacy

The Bush administration is up to some of its old tricks this week. After the Washington Post reported at the end of October of a movement within the administration to implement as much policy as possible through administrative functions rather than convincing Congress to adopt its policies, we are beginning to see some specific instances of their plan. In September, the White House issued new principles for agencies in conducting risk analysis that could impact agencies ability to protect the public. Then on Tuesday this week, Bush signed a new executive order (EO #13450) that attempts to "improve government program performance." Sounds like a good thing, no? let's look a bit deeper.

Dive into the Exec Order

Posted by Adam Hughes, 04:27:59 PM