In This Issue Budget Resolution News   Chart: American Views of Government   Supplemental Bill (for FY 2000) Stalls   JCT Sign-On Letter   Politically Motivated IRS Audits?   Chart: Customer Satisfaction, Public vs. Private   Government Information Clearinghouse   Takings Legislation Passes House   Burden Reduction Threatens Right to Know   Report Finds Internet Content Lacking   Tech Help: Nonprofit Collaboration Tools   Notes and Sidebars Budget Resolution News The House voted March 24 on its version of the FY 2001 budget resolution. Votes were taken on the GOP-backed resolution passed out of the House Budget Committee (with some amendments), a version backed by the Republican Conservative Action Team (CAT), the primary Democratic alternative (Spratt), the House “Blue Dog” budget (conservative Democrats), the Congressional Black Caucus budget, and the Progressive Caucus budget (DeFazio). To no one’s surprise, the substitutes were all rejected and the GOP-backed resolution was adopted by a narrow party-line vote of 211-207. Total discretionary spending was set at $596.5 billion, with defense spending getting all the increases for a total of $306.8 billion and nondefense spending being reduced to only $289.7 billion--$30 billion less than is included in the President’s budget. The Budget resolution remains stalled in the Senate Budget Committee. The major impediment is coming from conservative members of the committee who object to raising the resolution’s discretionary spending limit--from $578.2 billion in FY 2000, to $596.5 billion for FY 2001--a raise of 3.2 percent, which is roughly the rate of inflation. Fiscal conservatives find an increase at the rate of inflation excessive, thwarting their goal to shrink government. So, what will happen? If the Senate Budget Committee can’t come to agreement, according to budget rules, Majority Leader Lott has the power to discharge the resolution from Budget Committee consideration if it is not finished by April 1. Doing this is a risky measure, since it could anger conservative members who might have the numbers to prevent passage in the full Senate. Even if the bill is discharged on April 1, it will likely be on the Senate floor for a week or so before being passed and it will be another week or ten days in conference, making it unlikely that the congressional budget resolution for next year will be passed by the April 15 deadline. And that’s if it gets passed at all! Keep in mind, the Budget Resolution does not get signed by the President. It is a congressional blueprint--and in this partisan environment really a Republican blueprint. For an examination of the effect of the resolution on children’s programs, see

• Children’s Defense Fund analysis
• Marian Wright Edelman's letter to Speaker Hastert in opposition to the House Budget resolution

Back to Top American's Views of Government Graph Showing Mixed Views. 64% believe the government is inefficient and wasteful 64% believe government controls too much of our daily lives 72% believe government's role is to ensure everyone gets food clothes and shelter Source: 1998 survey by the Pew Research Center Supplemental Bill (for FY 2000) Stalls A Supplemental Appropriations bill which combats Colombia drug traffickers and covers military costs in Kosovo appears to be stalled in Congress. The House Appropriations Committee reported out a supplemental appropriations bill nearly two weeks ago that has been criticized by conservatives as bloated. The House bill provide $1.7 billion to help Colombia and its South American neighbors step up their anti-drug efforts. It also includes $2 billion to cover the costs of U.S. forces in Kosovo, $1.6 billion to meet the Pentagon's soaring fuel costs, $2.2 billion to assist communities and farms ravaged by last fall's Hurricane Floyd and $600 million to replenish funds for emergency heating and cooling assistance to low-income households. The bill totals $8.6 billion, considerably more than the President's request for $4.89 billion but has the support of the Clinton Administration. A supplemental appropriations bill provides money for the current fiscal year. Despite House Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-IL) and President Clinton's support for the bill, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) has publicly blasted the bill. Conservatives are opposing the amount of the bill, which will use up more than $9 billion of the projected $23 billion surplus for FY 2000, especially since many of the costs are made possible by various accounting gimmicks and devices. There is concern about the Columbia and other counter-narcotics programs, with some members believing the domestic drug treatment programs are being shortchanged. Curiously, the conservative concern over the cost of the bill is shared by the White House, with both arguing that the bill is bloated and too expensive. Back to Top Sign-On Deadline Extended It is increasingly clear that the Joint Committee on Taxation's recommendations on lobby disclosure by tax-exempt organizations have created quite a stir among national, state and local nonprofit organizations, including conservative groups that did not oppose the Istook Amendment. Even trade associations, which do not normally engage on charity issues, oppose the lobby disclosure provisions. Everyone recognizes that the new burdens the recommendations would impose are significant, unnecessary -- and would chill nonprofit advocacy. While no legislation has been introduced yet, it could happen at any moment. Therefore, we have extended the sign-on deadline for a Let America Speak! letter to Sen. Roth and Rep. Archer to oppose the lobby disclosure recommendations. We have learned from past experience with other attempts to restrict nonprofits' lobby rights that even if a bill does not move during a legislative session, once it is introduced it tends to take on a life of its own and show up again and again. Thus, we are working to nip this issue in the bud. We all understand that if we don't stop these proposals before they are introduced, they may come back to haunt us in future years. We have also observed some confusion about the difference between the Independent Sector sign-on letter and comments, and the Let America Speak! sign-on letter and comments. Independent Sector is circulating a separate set of comments and sign-on letter that address the entire JCT report. The Let America Speak! sign-on letter only deals with the three JCT recommendations on disclosure of lobbying and advocacy activities, and does not reference any other part of the report. For more information, or to sign on to the Let America Speak! letter, please visit the LAS JCT Report resources page , or contact Heather B. Hamilton at hbhamilton@ombwatch.org. Back to Top What, Are They Bored Up There? The Joint Committee on Taxation certainly has been busy with tax-exempt organization issues lately. On the heels of its January report on disclosure requirements that we have highlighted in recent issues, the JCT released on March 16th the report of its staff investigation on whether the Internal Revenue Service conducted politically motivated audits. The report found "no evidence of efforts by the Clinton administration to intervene in or influence selection of groups for audit," according to the JCT Chief of Staff Lindy Paull. The investigation, which took three years to complete, was originally spurred by media coverage of rather loud Republican allegations that the IRS targeted conservative groups for audits on the basis of groups' political views. Ironically, JCT Vice-Chair William V. Roth, Jr (R-DE) told BNA's Daily Report for Executives that he hoped the IRS would continue to work to change perceptions that politically motivated audits had occurred. Back to Top Graph: Customer Satisfaction: Federal Government Equivalent to Private Sector Private Sector...72/100 Federal Public Sector...69/100 Source: American Customer Satisfaction index developed by the University of Michigan Business School Society for Quality and Arthur Andersen Government Information Clearinghouse A public/private partnership is being developed for a Government Information Clearinghouse of federal government information of government web sites. A general description of the Partnership as currently envisioned is available at HREF="http://www.gils.net/AccessAmerica/partner.html">Government Information Clearinghouse web site. The good aspects of the Clearinghouse vision is that it builds on already existing standards which are based on library cataloging standards with which the general public is already familiar. These standards (Z39.50) are incorporated in the Government Information Locator Service (GILS), which is widely used among governments, other than our federal government (which has adopted and employed them desultorily), and in the scientific community. The vision also includes work toward development of “browsing trees” (taxonomies, thesauri). This would be a great boon to the public, who would then not have to guess at how an agency might categorize its publications. The bad news is that this vision is only intended to capture information on government web sites and then only at the level of a server-­or above. That's the equivalent of creating a card catalogue listing all of the libraries in the country, but none of the books in the libraries. A second bit of bad news is that agency participation in the Clearinghouse will be entirely voluntary. The scope of information captured will, therefore, be spotty and inconsistent. The designers of the Clearinghouse are also trying to avoid competing with private search services. As a result, it is extremely unclear what exactly will be made available to the public. Back to Top Takings Legislation Passes House The U.S. House of Representatives, on March 16th, passed the Private Property Rights Implementation Act of 1999 (H.R. 2372), which would allow developers to sue cities and towns easily and frequently in federal courts by providing a broader definition of takings. The term takings comes from a Supreme Court ruling in the 1920s that interpreted the Fifth Amendment to say that if zoning regulations restrict the use of private property beyond a certain limit, the action could be termed a taking and the government liable for the loss. Advocates of modern takings legislation go beyond the narrow Supreme Court interpretation of takings as a need to balance individual property rights with the property rights of all others. They argue that regulations--environmental, zoning, historic landmarks, etc.--limit the value of land and are, in fact, takings. This most recent takings bill seeks to redefine the procedures for prosecuting takings claims. H.R. 2372 would increase the cost of regulation by allowing developers to sue cities and towns easily and often in federal court. This would make land use protections much more costly and less attractive for communities to enact. In recent years, support for takings legislation has declined. In each Congress in the last three years, support has waned by thirty votes or more. The vote on H.R. 2372 passed 226-182, the smallest margin yet (and not enough to override a presidential veto). Apparently, the more Congress thinks about it, the less they like it. The bill faces strong opposition in the Senate and the President has promised to veto it if it lands on his desk. For more information, visit the Environmental Policy Project Takings Page Back to Top OMB Directs Agencies to Ease Industry "Burden" New White House initiatives to reduce burdens on industry would make it harder for the public to safeguard human health and the environment and hold government and industry accountable for their misdeeds. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the office in the Executive Office of the President that oversees agency regulatory and budget decisions, plans to begin discussions on reducing regulatory and reporting requirements for industry. Under the plan, selected agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, would hold what is billed as their own roundtable discussion with business interests affected by that agency's regulations and reporting requirements. It is unclear whether the public interest community could participate or whether OMB will sit in on the discussions. Without balanced representation, these meetings will likely give industry an open forum for attacking agency regulation and public safeguards and force agencies to accede to industry demands. OMB is also pushing EPA to lengthen the shadows of "sunshine" reporting requirements on toxic chemical releases. OMB is encouraging EPA to consider allowing facilities that manufacture, produce or otherwise use toxic chemicals to skip reporting their chemical releases for a given year if the amount of chemicals released did not change significantly from the previous year. Annual reporting is currently required under EPA's highly successful Toxics Release Inventory program. Such an opt-out system represents a step toward biennial reporting for the TRI reports, which would significantly reduce the amount of information available to citizens around the country on toxic chemicals in American communities. In the ten-year history of the TRI program, releases of TRI chemicals has dropped roughly 44 percent. The success of the TRI program has lead other countries, including Canada, Japan, Spain and the Czech Republic, to establish or consider creating their own toxic chemical right-to-know programs. Back to Top Report Finds Internet Content Lacking A new report by the Children's Partnership, announced at a briefing on March 15th, finds that the Internet fails to provide meaningful content for underserved Americans, which is exacerbating the digital divide. The report, "Online Content for Low-Income and Underserved Americans: The Digital Divide's New Frontier," found that there are nearly 50 million underserved Americans--including 44 million people who lack functional literacy--on the other side of the digital divide because the Internet lacks meaningful and useful content. Among the deficiencies found: a need for--and lack of--useful community-based information; an extreme lack of information for people of limited literacy; limited multi-lingual content; and limited content focusing on cultural diversity. Speakers at the briefing reiterated the key point of the report: providing access to computers is not enough to close the growing digital divide. Useful content and services are necessary to draw in underserved Americans, as is an infrastructure that focuses on development and training at a community level. The message was that now is the time to take advantage of social venture philanthropy and a strong economy, and invest in the infrastructure that will close the digital divide. The briefing was also used to announce a $1 million commitment from the Markle Foundation for efforts aimed at closing the digital divide. The report can be found at the Children's Partnership web site. Back to Top Tech Help: Collaboration is Virtually A Nonprofit Thing Nonprofit work involves collaboration among staff and partners, sometimes spread across large distances. Sometimes the nature of that work entails being able to markup or comment on documents, or brainstorming ideas, which is not always easily done via a conference call or e-mail, or for which an in-person meeting is not cost-effective. There are, however, different flavors of office-level collaborative technology for nonprofits to consider. If you were subscribed to NPTalk, you'd know what they are by now... Back to Top Your comments are always welcomed! Notes and Sidebars Invest in America Opposes House Budget Resolution The Steering Committee of Invest in America sent a letter last week to Representatives Gephardt (D-MO) and Hastert (R-IL), opposing the budget resolution as reported out of the House Budget Committee. Actions Against the World Bank/IMF A number of activities are leading up to the April 16th and 17th Action at the World Bank/International Monetary Fund. April 9th is the Jubilee 2000/USA mobilization to cancel the debts of impoverished countries; April 10th kicks off the World Bank Boycott Campaign; April 14th is a day long teach-in on globalization focusing on the World Bank and IMF. There are activities scheduled throughout the week and around the country. For more information, check out www.a16.org H.R. 887 Shelved H.R. 887, as reported on in the last issue of the OMB Watcher Online, would have forced disclosure of contributions to charities by corporations registered with the SEC, as well as by corporations with personal ties to charity Board members. The corporate accountability bill was withdrawn at its markup, March 15th, by Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-OH) after Rep. Markey tried to add language that would have made corporations disclose political contributions as well as contributions to nonprofits. Deadline for Millenium Forum Extended The Millenium Forum is scheduled for May 22-26, 2000 at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The international forum will cover six broad themes: Peace, Security & Disarmament; Poverty Eradication; Human Rights; Sustainable Development and the Environment; the Challenges of Globalization; and Democratizing the UN and Global Institutions. Because of the widespread interest of grassroots-level non-governmental organizations around the world, the deadline for application to attend the forum has been extended to March 31, 2000. For more information, see the Millennium Forum web site. Call for Presentations The Loka Institute Community Research Network's Third Annual Conference, "Common Problems, Uncommon Resources: Exploring the Social and Economic Challenges to Community Based Research", is being held June 16th-18th in Atlanta, GA. The conference will provide an opportunity for Community Based Researchers to identify critical factors in the growth and sustainability of CBR practice and to build a more effective network. They welcome proposals for workshops, plenary sessions, and roundtables sharing CBR experiences and practices. Deadline is April 3rd. For more information, visit the Loka Institute web site. Child Poverty Survey Recently released survey results find that nearly 2 in 3 Americans endorse investing 10 percent or more of federal budget surplus to reduce child poverty. The findings of the National Center for Children in Poverty, a non-partisan research center at Columbia University’s Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health, indicate wide-spread, bipartisan concern for the 20% of young children in the U.S. who live in poverty. The combination of shrinking welfare rolls and expanding federal and state budget surpluses make now the perfect time to eradicate child poverty. To view the report, visit the NCCP web site. Transportation Report A recent report by the Surface Transportation Policy Project finds that, in the last two years, spending on construction of new highways has increased at the same time that funding for highway maintenance and public transit has dropped. According to Ron Kienitz, Executive Director of the STTP, recent research shows that building new roads does not solve highway congestion, yet that is exactly where the federal gas tax is being spent. To view the report and fact sheets by state, visit the STPP web site. Paperwork Burdens Rep. David McIntosh (R-IN) will hold a hearing on April 12 regarding paperwork burdens. OMB is expected to release its Information Collection Budget just before the hearing which shows paperwork burden is increasing by 235 million hours. Most of this is from the IRS and is mandated by law. The ICB report is also supposed to show that the number of agency paperwork violations (e.g., not getting OMB clearance) is down from 872 violations to the 500 to 600 range.