OMB Watch and five other nonprofit organizations have collaborated to form a project called Bailout Watch. The project will research, investigate, and analyze the federal government's bailout activities and publish resources and data for policymakers, the media, and interested citizens.

The passage of an unemployment insurance extension, which occurred at the end of November, is likely the last effort by the 110th Congress to enact legislation to stimulate the economy. With Republicans continuing to block immediate passage of a large economic stimulus package, Democrats are preparing to move legislation as soon as President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January 2009.

On Oct. 30, a group of economic experts testified before the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) on the necessity and scope of a second economic stimulus package. While committee members and witnesses agreed on the severity of the ongoing economic situation, there was a clear ideological divide on which course of action Congress should pursue. At the center of the divide were the competing concerns for families facing certain hardships inflicted by a contracting economy and for the consequences of an increase in the federal budget deficit, which would be required to aid those families and help reverse the current economic trend.

October 7, 2008

Dear Workshop Participant,

The GPPI/Accenture/OMB Watch Government Performance Workshop is just over one week away. Thank you for joining us to lend your expertise to our effort to develop recommendations for the next administration on performance management. On October 15, you will join a diverse group of policy experts, academics, government representatives, and outside stakeholders with the goal of finding areas of consensus, identifying areas of disagreement, and defining top priorities for the next administration.

The pace at which Congress is considering the largest intervention into financial markets in the history of the United States, if not the world, is shocking. Over the weekend, the Bush administration proposed legislation that would grant it the authority to buy up toxic financial assets in an amount equal to five percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The magnitude of the funds requisitioned is matched only by the administration's requested level of unchecked power and opacity in how it would execute this historic market intervention. Congress has responded with uncharacteristic haste, setting the stage for passage of monumentally flawed legislation that purports to fix a yet-undiagnosed problem in roughly one week.

Congress returned to Washington the week of Sept. 8 to a jam-packed schedule and just three weeks left to complete work for the year before the target adjournment date of Sept. 26. Below is a brief summary of some of the major pieces of legislation covering fiscal policy issues that will likely be addressed:

In the dwindling days before the July 4 congressional recess, the House and Senate will try to break the longstanding logjams on three critical pieces of tax legislation: a proposal to approve a "patch" to hold constant the number of taxpayers liable to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), a bill to renew dozens of tax provisions collectively referred to as the "extenders," and the tax title of Rep. Barney Frank's (D-MA) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) foreclosure guarantee bill.

Although Congress has not yet begun to consider any of the appropriations bills that will finance the federal government in FY 2009, the White House threatened to veto Democratic spending bills — even before any details were unveiled. With the flurry of veto threats late in his presidency, President Bush appears to be attempting to erase seven-plus years of reckless fiscal management of the federal government with token gestures that feign fiscal responsibility. Despite these recent actions, budget watchdogs say the Bush legacy on fiscal policy will be one of irresponsibility, inattention to detail, and futility.

Late on March 13 and early in the morning of March 14, the House and Senate adopted $3 trillion budget resolutions for Fiscal Year 2009 by votes of 212-207 and 51-44, respectively. While the resolutions are similar in terms of broad policy outlines and priorities, they differ on a few major points, including the total amount of discretionary spending and whether to offset the cost of a one-year patch to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).