In This Issue Appropriations Lag - Tax Cuts Pass Congress   Latest Tax Bill   What About a Raise in the Minimum Wage?   Americans' Conflicting Views of Government   House Passes Bill Directing GAO to Evaluate Agency Rules   House Blocks Public Protection Bill   OMB's Proposed Guidelines on Information Dissemination   OMB Questions EPA Plan to Track Viewers of Chemical Accident Data   FirstGov Portal Falls Short   Another Government Portal?   Dial 211 for Human Services   Tech Help: Banner Ads   Notes and Sidebars   Appropriations Lag - Tax Cuts Pass Congress Congress has left town for its August recess. Only two (defense and military construction) of the thirteen appropriations bills have been adopted in final form by the House and Senate, and only one of those has been passed into law. Congress has passed, or is expected to pass, over ten tax cut bills. Most, including the largest -- the Estate Tax repeal, the Marriage "Penalty" Relief, and the reduced tax on Social Security earnings -- are under veto threat, so are largely political rhetoric rather than potential legislation. Nevertheless, it is sobering to see how use of the surplus for tax cuts has taken center stage. It is also worth noting that this piecemeal approach to tax legislation -- passing a number of separate bills -- ultimately has the same result as the huge $792 billion tax bill that was so overwhelmingly rejected by Americans last summer. Several analyses have been recently released about the cost of the tax cuts and how, if enacted, they will completely erase the non-Social Security surplus over ten years, or, at least, make a serious dent in it. In a radio address on July 22, the President highlighted a new Office of Management and Budget analysis which finds that the cost of tax cuts actually passed by Congress this year would be more than $700 billion over ten years, and with interest, more than $900 billion. If you count all the bills that have been passed or are anticipated to pass, the cost would be $1.4 trillion, or $1.8 trillion with interest, almost or entirely using up the non-Social Security surplus (depending on which estimate of the surplus is used). It is important to remember that the cost of tax cuts increases as time goes by, and they are hard to repeal. The cost of tax cuts that sounded reasonable over 5 years can be huge in 10 or 20 years. In addition to arguments about eating up the surplus with tax cuts, the bills are largely targeted towards those Americans who are the most well off. The U.S. Treasury Department recently issued an analysis of major tax bills passed by the House Budget Committee, and found that 60% of the tax cuts would go to the top 10% of families. A number of analyses by other groups find that the Marriage Penalty Relief, the Estate Tax repeal, and the Social Security Earnings tax relief all provide more benefits to Americans with higher incomes. Congress is now in recess until September 5, and will have very little working time to get all thirteen of the appropriations bills completed and signed before the start of the new fiscal year, October 1. This indicates that there will be another last-minute negotiating session between Congress and the White House, which in the past has resulted in increases in domestic spending, even while it is not the best way to accomplish the appropriations process. Back to Top Latest Tax Bill The latest tax bill to be passed by the House reduces the tax paid by Social Security beneficiaries who are earning $44,000 or more as a couple or $34,000 or more as a single person. The 1993 Budget Reconciliation Act increased the amount of tax paid on that income from 50% to 85%, in order to use the increased revenue to strengthen Medicare. The House passed a bill last week that returns the tax to 50%, and requires a portion of budget surplus money to be used to strengthen Medicare. The bill would only benefit about 22% of seniors receiving Social Security benefits. Back to Top What About a Raise in the Minimum Wage? When was the last time the U.S. Government raised the minimum wage? 1996. However, don't expect a raise soon. Congress is expected to make any minimum wage provision part of yet another tax cut bill -- targeted to small businesses. The President has vowed to veto any minimum wage increase bill that is not a stand-alone bill. Back to Top Americans Mistrust Government, But Also Want Government to Solve the Nation's Problems A new survey by National Public Radio, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government finds that, while Americans say they mistrust government, they also want government to be more involved in a wide range of areas. Americans are more confident than they were five years ago that the government can be effective -- from 39% to 51% (still not a record high). While people have general feelings of mistrust of government or too much government regulation, when confronted with specific programs or regulated areas, they have positive views about what government is capable of accomplishing and even think that government should regulate more. The report also shows that attitudes towards government vary among different racial and ethnic categories. This report contains similar findings to other recent reports. Curiously, satisfaction with performance of specific government services is measurably improving, while overall trust in government remains much lower and is only slightly increasing. A Pew Research Center Survey, "Performance and Purpose; Constituents Rate Government Agencies," released in April 2000, studied five federal agencies and found that citizens gave high marks to these agencies' performance but that judgments about government "rely as much on attitude about an agency's purpose as on evaluations of its performance." They also noted only a slow rise in overall trust in government in February 2000 from 1992, still not rising to the level of trust exhibited in 1988. The American Customer Satisfaction Index, released in December 1999, rated customer satisfaction with government as compared to customer satisfaction in the private sector, finding that the public sector is on par with the private sector. (Public services had a range of 51 to 87 on a 0-100 scale, with a weighted aggregate score of 68.6; private services had a range of 53 to 86 with a weighted aggregate score of 73). ACSI also noted that trust in government is not the result of customer satisfaction with government; rather, since we don't trust government, we are so pleased when it does something well that we accord it higher ratings. Our own focus groups, conducted by Lake, Snell, Perry and Associates, found great interest in investing in our future during this period of economic prosperity. Voters identified issues and programs run by the federal government as examples of investments that should be made. At the same time they negatively described politicians and bureaucracy, which rubs off on government in general. This is not surprising since we frequently see news stories concentrate on "waste, fraud and abuse" in government programs, while rarely does the media report success stories. One bar to increased domestic investment is the general mistrust of government services expressed by the public, but it does not appear to apply to specific government programs. Back to Top House Passes Bill Directing GAO to Evaluate Agency Rules The House passed a bill (H.R. 4744) last week that would establish an office within GAO to evaluate agency rulemakings at the request of Congress. Similar legislation (S. 1198) has already been passed by the Senate, and the president is expected to sign it into law. As passed, H.R. 4744 is vastly different than what originally came out of the Government Reform Committee. Language in that version appeared to require GAO to conduct its own independent cost-benefit analysis, and come up with its own regulatory alternatives. The Senate version, by contrast, simply required GAO to conduct an "evaluation of the agency's analysis," as well as the regulatory alternatives that the agency considered and rejected. Rep. Gary Condit (D-CA), a leading Blue Dog, introduced a bill (H.R. 4763) identical to the Senate version just prior to committee markup. Democrats planned to offer Condit's bill as a substitute amendment on the floor, and with the Blue Dogs behind it, as well as a handful of Republicans, it stood a very good chance of passing. That prompted the sponsors of H.R. 4744 -- Reps. David McIntosh (R-IN) and Sue Kelly (R-NY) -- to capitulate and accept most of the Senate language, which McIntosh had vigorously resisted in committee. H.R. 4744 was then put up on suspension and passed without controversy. The House bill isn't completely identical to the Senate version, however, and there is one difference worth noting. The House version directs GAO to complete its review of a proposed rule before the public comment period has closed "if practicable." The Senate version by contrast gives GAO 180 days irrespective of the comment period. Having GAO act as a super-commenter on behalf of Congress is somewhat troubling and could blur the separation of powers between Congress and the executive branch. Back to Top House: We'd Rather Have Irresponsible Contractors The House voted on July 20th to block a rule that promotes greater accountability for federal contractors -- to make sure they comply with important public protections. Reps. Thomas Davis (R-VA) and Jim Moran (D-VA) succeeded in attaching an amendment -- by a 228 to 190 vote -- to the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill that prohibits the administration from going forward with the rule until GAO completes a study on compliance with the law by federal contractors. GAO has already done similar studies in the past. One, for example, found that 80 firms that violated the National Labor Relations Act received more than $23 billion in contracts in FY 1993. In FY 1994, $38 billion was awarded to 261 federal contractors that were cited by OSHA for 5,121 violations, many of which were both serious and willful. The Davis-Moran amendment was also expected to be offered in the Senate last week by Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK). But Senate Democrats blocked action on Treasury-Postal in protest to Republican inaction on judicial nominations. This prompted the Republican leadership to attempt an end-run around congressional rules and procedures in the dead of night on Wednesday, July 26th, by attaching Treasury-Postal to unrelated legislation in conference committee, even though it was never taken up on the Senate floor (conference committees are supposed to represent a compromise between the House and Senate versions of the same legislation). The version that emerged from conference committee included the rider barring the administration from implementing its procurement reforms. The House took up the conference committee's work product on Thursday, prompting outrage from Democrats (as well as a few Republicans) who argued, in the words of Rep. Martin Frost (D-TX), that it represented "a disrespectful abuse of this institution." Ultimately, Republican leaders were forced to withdraw the bill. In addition, there were several other bad riders included in the Treasury-Postal bill that came out of the conference committee: one requires OMB to conduct cumulative cost-benefit analysis of federal paperwork and regulation (called regulatory accounting), the other requires OMB to conduct an impossible study of regulatory paperwork burden. The Senate will take up the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill once Congress returns from its August recess. Back to Top Is Everybody Happy? OMB's Proposed Guidelines on Information Dissemination The White House has struck a deal with key members of Congress to ensure that agencies are putting out "objective" information, but it is unclear whether being objective means putting out factually accurate information, developing reasonable conclusions based on an examination of evidence, for example, about workplace hazards, or whether "objective" means not crossing powerful interests. The House version (H.R. 4871) of the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill includes language requiring OMB to issue guidelines to agencies "for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity" of information disseminated by federal government agencies. Within a year of the issuance of OMB guidelines, agencies are required to establish similar guidelines and then report on the number of complaints received about data accuracy and agencies' response to those complaints. While that may sound fair and even -- to use their words -- "objective" (who doesn't support getting high quality information out of agencies?), this language could bog down efforts to protect human health and the environment and communicate hazards to the public. Would the Occupational Safety and Health Administration have to come up with data on workplace hazards that even facility managers can't argue against before taking steps to eliminate workplace hazards? It turns out that some were upset that EPA had cited or posted information from a private entity on global climate change issues, which prompted -- believe it or not -- criticism of EPA. Congressional action on the Treasury-Postal spending bill is delayed until September; we'll keep you posted. Back to Top OMB Questions Plan to Track Who Views Chemical Accident Data As we told you in the May 8th OMB Watcher Online, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule in conjunction with the Department of Justice that would severely restrict the public's right to know about possible worst-case chemical accident scenarios. But EPA is having a tough time finalizing its plan. The proposed rule would keep the information out of public view, but not classify the information completely, by (1) withholding key information about a community's vulnerability to chemical accidents from widespread Internet dissemination; (2) forcing the public to travel to government-run "reading rooms" to sign in only to view, but not photocopy, paper copies of worst-case and more-likely case chemical accident scenarios; and (3) creating a web site that would allow users to find out whether a particular street address might be vulnerable to chemical accidents but not identify the facility that poses the risk. Since the plan involves the government collecting information on individual members of the public who access paper copies of this information, EPA is required to gain separate approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the collection of information. But OMB was not ready to sign off so easily. In asking EPA to justify its plan to record the identities of individuals viewing so-called "offsite consequence analyses" of facility Risk Management Plans (RMPs) and which facilities' records were examined, OMB instructed EPA to address "the need and practical utility of recording the names of facilities whose RMPs are inspected by members of the public at federal reading rooms" as well as public comments on the information collection request. Many environmental and public interest groups have already weighed in with EPA, calling the proposed rules an unjustified roll-back of the public's right to know. Paul Orum, director of the Working Group on Community Right To Know, calls EPA's strategy a "do-nothing, know-nothing" plan. EPA will have to resubmit its information collection request once it has finalized the RMP rule. Back to Top FirstGov Falls Short on Providing Access to Information Last week, OMB Watch sent a letter to Sally Katzen of the Office of Management and Budget expressing disappointment in the mock-up of the FirstGov online portal to government information . We noted that the site falls far short of the objectives identified by the President in a December 17th memo: "to help our citizens gain one-stop access to existing Government information and services, and to provide better, more efficient, Government services and increased Government accountability to its citizens." In particular, the letter noted that the mock-up is, at best, a click-through and not a portal, that it is not topically arranged (as required by the President's memo), and that the Certified Partners (non-government organizations and companies which will provide linkage to FirstGov from their Web sites) are given undue prominence on the page. The letter cites GPO Access and FedWorld , as well as agency web sites, as more robust sites which should be taken as models on which to build. Our letter also takes the developers of FirstGov to task for lack of public involvement.

• Read OMB Watch's letter to OMB

Back to Top One Thousand E-Govs Blooming On July 25, the Treasury Department unveiled a new program -— Pay.gov -— which will be launched at the end of October as a one-stop shop for people to make government payments using the Internet. This is separate from FirstGov.gov, which is planned as a one-stop to government information and transactions. How is the public to know to go to FirstGov for information, Pay.gov for electronic payment transactions, and who knows what other .gov for other things? This increasing development on an ad hoc basis of sites for the public to interact generally with government highlights the need for an over-arching one-stop or portal. Back to Top Dial 211 for Human Services On July 21st, the Federal Communications Commission set aside the 211 dialing code for access to community service organizations. The new number will provide direct access to organizations providing referral to services such as child care, legal assistance, housing assistance, utilities maintenance, counseling, and hospice services. This move is meant to supplement people's ability to get help that would not normally be found through the 911 emergency code or the 311 police non-emergency code. This announcement comes more than two years after a group including the United Way and the Alliance of Information and Referral Systems sent a petition to the FCC asking for a 211 human service referral number, and 22 months after the public comment period on the proposal ended. When a person dials this number, they will be connected to a referral specialist who will connect them with the proper organization. A system similar to this is already successful in Connecticut and the Atlanta Area.

• More information

Back to Top Tech Help: Do Banner Ads and Nonprofits Click? The Internet is often thought of an marketing playground, with the potential to reach a global audience through banners and other forms of advertising... at least according to Internet ad firms. But what, if anything, can nonprofits gain from advertising online, especially in an online environment dominated by large scale commercial and product-oriented banner ads? NPTalk subscribers found out what works and why. Follow the link to see what they learned.... Subscribe to NPTalk Back to Top Your comments are always welcomed! Notes and Sidebars Anniversary of GPRA The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) is Seven Years Old! In honor of the occasion, the House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, held a hearing on July 20, 2000, to ask "Seven Years of GPRA: Has the Results Act Provided Results?" Read OMB Watch's testimony Budget Surplus Estimates The Congressional Budget Office's new mid-year surplus estimates, which are even slightly higher than the earlier update by the Office of Management and Budget, projects at least $2.17 trillion in non-Social Security surpluses over the next ten years, compared to OMB's $1.87 trillion. Tobacco Settlement Money to Tobacco Farmers? Besides the federal budget surpluses, most states have "surplus" money coming from the $206 billion tobacco settlement, as well as surpluses of TANF funds. The National Conference of State Legislatures recently issued a report showing how states are spending their tobacco payment monies -- some states are using the money to increase access to health care, child and adolescent programs, cancer research, provide prescription drug relief for seniors, and in other beneficial programs. However, Virginia, for instance, is using 80% of its tobacco settlement money to help tobacco farmers, and Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Maryland all allocated funds to help tobacco growers. See how your state does by looking at the report. GAO Report on E-Rulemaking GAO recently released a report examining how agencies are using information technology (IT) to facilitate public participation in the rulemaking process. The report found that all five agencies it examined are using IT in some way to facilitate rulemakings, but that there are significant differences between the agencies in how it is being applied. Civic Engagement Conference The National Civic League's 106th National Conference on Governance, "Wired for Civic Engagement: Using New Technology to Build Community," takes place November 9th-11th in Washington, DC. A wide variety of participants will gather to discuss technology and its potential to revitalize participation in civic life. Sessions will explore the effect of technology on grassroots activism and political campaigns, the role of government and philanthropy, the digital divide, and other topics. For more information, visit the National Civic League's conference web site. Helpful Economics Site Economicsearch.com is a one-stop source for economics information and resources. The site provides an extensive listing of links to economics resources inside and outside the government, which are indexed and searchable by keyword. Internet Taxation Report The Century Foundation has released the latest report in its Ideas2000 series, "Tax Fairness for Internet Commerce." The report argues that the collection of Internet taxes should become routine in order to curb inequity in the tax system and prevent funding cutbacks through loss of revenue. There are also suggestions for simplifying the system.