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Small Modular Reactors: Federal Subsidies for Mini Nukes

The Department of Energy (DOE) is asking Congress to provide $452 million in taxpayer subsidies to help license up to two experimental...

Federal Subsidies for the United States Enrichment Corporation

The United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) was established in 1992 as a wholly-owned federal entity until it was privatized in 1998....

DOE Loan Guarantee Program: Vogtle Reactors 3&4

In February 2010, the Department of Energy (DOE) conditionally offered Southern Company and its partners a total of $8.33 billion in...

Impact of Ag Subsidies and Record Farm Profits in Farm Country

Despite last year’s drought, the agriculture sector recorded its second highest year of profits in a generation, down just three percent...

Corporate Consolidation in Agriculture Fact Sheet

Despite best intentions, sometimes federal programs do more harm than good and cause unintended consequences that unnecessarily shift...

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Market Access Program

Many examples of corporate welfare can be found in the federal budget, but few are as wasteful as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s...

Taxpayer Supports for Corn Ethanol in Federal Legislation

Since its creation of the domestic market for corn ethanol after the energy crisis of the 1970s, the federal government has nurtured and...

Repowering Assistance Program Fact Sheet

The Repowering Assistance Program, administered by U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Development office, reimburses...

Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels Fact Sheet

Established by an Executive Order in 1999, the Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels (BPAB) is intended to pay advanced biofuels...

Political Footprint of the Corn Ethanol Lobby

The federal government has in one form or another provided lucrative subsidies to the corn ethanol industry for more than 30 years,...

Taxpayer Subsidies for Small Modular Reactors

The Department of Energy (DOE) is asking Congress to provide hundreds of millions in subsidies to commercialize small modular nuclear...

Political Power of the Agribusiness and Crop Insurance Lobbies

The so-called Farm Bill currently being negotiated in Congress is shaping up to be another taxpayer-funded handout to wealthy landowners,...

Farm Bill 101

The Farm Bill is a massive piece of legislation that guides food and farm policy. It covers wide-ranging topics from rural broadband service to farm subsidy payments....

Agricultural Safety Net 101

The agricultural safety net refers to the various federal programs and policies that insulate agricultural producers from the costs of conducting business....

Big Oil Makes Top Dollar

The first half of 2012 has brought more multi-billion dollar profits for major oil companies. So far, these companies have raked in more...

Department of Energy Loan Guarantees: $8 Billion Allocated for Fossil Fuel Projects

While the program was intended for emerging energy technologies, mature industries like coal and nuclear are eligible as well. Congress provided the program with funding in several areas including advanced nuclear reactors, renewable and energy efficiency, front-end nuclear fuel cycle technology, and advanced fossil fuels....

Coal Industry Profits

For centuries the federal government has been in the business of providing billions in subsidies to coal companies in order to ensure...

Zombie Earmarks in Defense Spending Bill

The Fiscal Year 2013 defense spending bill heading to the House floor Wednesday is a lesson in why it’s so hard to cut defense spending...

Federal-Free Risk Management in Agriculture

Like all businesses, agricultural producers face a number of risks in maintaining a profitable enterprise. Successful management of these...

Department of Energy Loan Guarantees: Uranium Enrichment

The Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Guarantee Program was created in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to provide Treasury backed loan...

Big Oil Tops $150 Billion in Profits in 2011

With annual financial reports being released this time of year, the oil and gas industry is looking to continue its decade long trend of...

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS): Too Costly for Taxpayers

Carbon capture and storage (CCS), also referred to as carbon capture and sequestration, is the process of separating carbon dioxide (CO2)...

The Department of Energy FutureGen Initiative

The latest iteration of the Department of Energy’s FutureGen project (find a timeline here) is a federal initiative to finance and...

Big Oil, Big Profits

Another quarter, another unsurprising set of reports of huge profits for the oil companies. Continuing to be some of the most profitable...

Super Cuts for the Super Committee

Taxpayers for Common Sense has been working hard to meet the challenge of that the so-called Super Committee is facing - $1.2-1.5...

Myth v. Fact: Oil and Gas Companies’ Effective Tax Rate

              MYTH: OIL AND GAS COMPANIES HAVE A HIGH EFFECTIVE TAX RATE “The effective tax rate for the industry is...

Ongoing TCS Analysis of the FY2012 Budget Proposal

The FY2012 Presidential Budget Request was released this morning. TCS staff will be posting relevant documents and analysis as we digest...

Common Sense Cuts—$900 billion in savings over 10 years

The time has come for Congress to begin a serious discussion about how it is going to correct the current budgetary path into deeper and...

TCS Recommended Budget Cuts for the 112th Congress

The time has come for Congress to begin a serious discussion about how it is going to correct the current budgetary path into deeper and...

Election Gives Big-Spending Congressional Committees New Look

The Armed Services Committees are not the only Congressional bodies to see their memberships upended by the midterm elections. The...

Third Quarter Results are in and still the same story: Billions in profit, billions more in subsidie

Total SA made $3.2 in the third quarter; Shell: $3.5; Chevron: $3.8; Exxon: $7.4; and most telling of all, BP has emerged back into the...

Green Scissors 2010

Taxpayers for Common Sense joined a number of environmental and consumer groups and a bipartisan slate of Representatives today in...

Federal Loan Guarantees for Nuclear Reactors: Details of the Current Applicants

On February 16, 2010, the Department of Energy offered the first conditional nuclear loan guarantee of $8.3 billion to Southern Company...

Oil and Gas Industry: A Decade of Record Breaking Profits

Big Oil has made Big Money over the last decade. In fact, the last five years proved to be some of the most profitable for any U.S....

Details on the President’s Proposed Fossil Fuel Cuts

In keeping with President Obama’s call to end fossil fuel subsidies, the latest budget proposal includes several significant cuts to oil,...

Oil and Gas Royalties: Relief for Oil and Gas Companies, a Fiscal Headache for Taxpayers

Oil and gas companies that drill offshore or on public lands are required to pay for the oil and gas they remove in the form of...

UPDATE: The President’s 2010 Budget: Reining in Oil and Gas Subsidies

The president’s fiscal year 2010 budget repeals several long-standing oil and gas subsidies, saving an estimated $31.7 billion over the...

TCS Fact Sheet: Coal Industry Profits

In 1932, the federal government began giving subsidies to the coal industry in order to help the industry recover initial capital...

Bailout Bank Bio: Chrysler

Chrysler LLC was founded in 1925 and is headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan.  In 2007 Cerberus Capital Management took up managing...

Ethanol Subsidies: Too Much for Too Little

Through a combination of subsidies, trade restrictions, and government mandates a handful of corporate agribusinesses and oil companies...

Bailout Bank Bio: AIG

UPDATE: March 4, 2009. After reporting a $61.7 billion quarterly loss – the biggest single quarter loss ever – in early March AIG asked...

Bailout Bank Bio: Capital One Financial Inc

Capital One Financial is a financial services company whose products and services include consumer and commercial banking and credit card...

Bailout Bank Bio: Goldman Sachs

On October 28, 2008, Goldman Sachs received $10 billion of the first $125 billion from the $700 billion bailout bill. Goldman Sachs is a...

Clean Coal Projects: Cleaning Out the Pockets of Taxpayers

Since the late 1970’s, the federal government has funneled billions of dollars into “Clean Coal” technology and programs designed to make...

TCS Agriculture Program

Taxpayers for Common Sense works with a broad range of groups to enact significant farm policy reform. With the farm bill up for...

Bush Administration Releases Proposal for Farm Bill Compromise

Below is a copy of the proposal reportedly put forth the by the Bush Administration over the weekend.  It’s hard to say whether this is...

Parameters of a Successful Farm Bill

The President released a response to House and Senate conference committee negotiators. The President proposed 13 potential offsets to...

Crop Insurance and Disaster Assistance: 2007 Farm Bill Issues (CRS Report for Congress)

The federal government has relied primarily on two policy tools in recent years to help mitigate the financial losses experienced by crop...

FRESH Act Fact Sheet

The FRESH act introduced by Senators Lugar and Lautenberg, and co-sponsored by Senators Cardin, Menendez, Reed, Hatch, Collins and...

House Passes “Carbon Copy” Farm Bill

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 27, 2007 CONTACT: Steve Ellis, 202-546-8500 x126 Washington, D.C. – The following is a statement from...

U.S. Farm Policy: Blank Check Politics

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) continues outdated, depression-era farm subsidy policies that funnel billions of dollars to...

Oil and Gas Royalty Relief Fact Sheet

“Relief” for Oil and Gas A Fiscal Headache for Taxpayers “Now, we don’t think oil companies need tax incentives or subsidies to drill...

TCS Statement on Senate Farm Subsidy Vote

The following is a written statement by Jill Lancelot, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, on the Senate refusal to cut billions in handouts for the nation’s largest and richest farms....

Top Ten Worst 2005 Energy Bill

OCS inventory: Government sources estimate that a full inventory of America’s Outer Continental Shelf would cost the government...

World Trade Organization Overrules King Cotton

The following is a prepared statement by Franz Matzner, Policy Analyst of Taxpayers for Common Sense on the World Trade Organization's final decision on the Brazil Cotton Case....

Fixed Direct Payments: Flawed Formula Fleeces Taxpayers

Fixed Direct Payments, or ‘decoupled payments’, provide farmers with direct income unrelated to the market.1 Many argue that direct...

TCS Statement on House Supporting Payment Caps in Farm Bill

The following is a statement by Cena Swisher, Senior Director at Taxpayers for Common Sense, on the House Supporting Payment Caps in Farm Bill:...

Despite Changes, Farm Bill Costs too Much, Continues to Plague Family Farmers

The following statement is from Joe Theissen, Executive Director of Taxpayers for Common Sense in response to final passage of S. 1731, the Senate farm bill: ...

Chabot takes Stand Against Wasteful Spending

Representative Steve Chabot (R-OH) today offered two separate amendments to the House Agriculture spending bill that would eliminate...

Agricultural Appropriations Bill Reaches Too Deep

Washington, DC - The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on an appropriations bill today that is riddled with unnecessary...

Agriculture Appropriations Bill Reaches Too Deep

Washington, DC – The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on an appropriations bill today that is riddled with unnecessary...

Welfare for Waste

How Federal Taxpayers Subsidies Waste Resources and Discourage Recycling...

Pentagon Follies

How the Department of Defense Is Wasting Your Tax Dollars...

Syria: Excuse 535 To Not Cut the Deficit

Volume XVIII No. 37 Possible action in Syria has become the most recent excuse du jour for Pentagon boosters...