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Sliding Past Sequestration: $2 Trillion in Common Sense Cuts to Avoid the Fiscal Cliff

In the summer of 2011, Congress sent the President a bill that acknowledged failure. Instead of swallowing hard and coming up with...

Congress Relies on Billions from Treasury in Transportation Reauthorization

A quick note: This analysis is based upon best available data at the time it was written. As of this posting (6:20pm), the final...

Green Scissors 2012

Left-Right coalition identifies practical steps Congress could take to slash deficits, save natural resources....

Why Transportation Reauthorization Negotiations Are Failing: The Pay-fors Just Don’t Add Up

Congress continues to meet behind closed doors in a Conference Committee to hash out the details of a transportation bill...

Spending Even Less, Spending Even Smarter

Watchdog Groups Identify Nearly $700 Billion in Wasteful Spending on National Security...

California HSR Project Cuts Costs but Federal Taxpayer Still on the Hook

In response to growing public opposition, questionable project merit, and an increasingly bloated cost, the California High Speed Rail...

House to seek another extension for transportation program

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Mica (R-FL) introduced H.R. 4239 yesterday; a “clean” extension to the...

Sandy Supplemental Data

As Washington debates the merits of a supplemental spending bill in response to superstorm Sandy, this database lists of all the spending...

FY13 Defense Budget Scorecard

The Defense Department today gave the public a peek behind the cover of its Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, releasing a report and fact...

The Nation’s Transportation Trust Funds

The nation’s transportation system — highways, transit lines, aviation, waterways, and ports — is largely supported by a series of...

TIGER III Grant Awardees Named

The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) today awarded $511 million worth of grants to support 46 projects in 33 states and...

Analyzing Transportation Provisions in Mini-Bus Appropriations Bill

House and Senate negotiators have released a final version of the so-called "mini-bus" appropriations bill that will roll three funding...

Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) Loan Program: Program Expansion Must Not Erode Taxpayer Protections

The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) was adopted by Congress in 1998 to leverage federal resources and...

Bridging the Gap: Redirecting Investments to Fix the Nation’s Bridges

A large portion of the nation’s 600,000 bridges are in poor condition and require investment to repair or replace. Congress, by virtue of...

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 - $.12-1.5...

Transportation: Gridlock may lead to Crashes Ahead

The daunting challenges Congress faces in the next month regarding the nation's transportation programs when it returns next week: 1....

Spending Less, Spending Smarter: Recommendations for National Security Savings FY 2012 to FY 2021

Watchdog Groups Identify Nearly $600 Billion in National Security Spending Cuts WASHINGTON, D.C.—The federal government could save...

Senate Transportation Reauthorization Summary Released

On the heels of the House's recent proposal, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today released a summary of its own...

House Transportation Reauthorization Proposal Released

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, chaired by Rep. John Mica (R-FL) today released an outline of its proposal for a...

Repair Priorities: Transportation Spending Strategies to Save Taxpayer Dollars and Improve Roads

June 1, 2011 Taxpayers for Common Sense and Smart Growth America released a report highlighting smarter investments in road repair and...

The Most For Our Money—Highlighting Solutions for the Nation’s Transportation Problems

Transportation dollars are tight. The gasoline tax that we rely on to build and maintain our transportation networks isn’t enough to meet...

Draft of Administration’s Transportation Reauthorization Revealed

A draft has started floating around of the Obama Administration's reauthorization proposal for the nation's transportation program....

Reports highlight problems with transportation spending

Billions of taxpayer dollars handed out by the Department of Transportation was distributed on the basis of a flawed selection process,...

Framing the Transportation Debate: Two Recent Documents Highlight Key Issues

Two documents released recently do a great job framing the upcoming debate over reauthorization of the nation’s surface transportation...

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 Budget Cut List for the 112th Congress: Energy

Energy Total Cuts: $42 billion Taxpayers have been subsidizing the same mature, polluting energy technologies for decades. Many...

TCS Recommended Budget Cut List No. 2: Total Cuts $205+ billion

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 Review of CBO Brief: Spending and Funding for Highways

As the 112th Congress begins to tackle runaway deficits, government spending cuts, and congressional earmark bans, they will undoubtedly...

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...

Fiscal Commission Defense Cuts: Strong Start, More Can be Done

The draft recommendations released this week by the co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform propose...

Green Scissors 2010

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

The Flap Over the Jobs Bill: Flawed Politics of the Past Would Continue to Distribute Funds in the F

Earlier this week, the Senate passed its version of the jobs bill—a bill which is flawed from a transportation and taxpayer...

Senate Jobs Bill: The Wrong Direction on Transportation

Updated 2:33pm The Senate-passed jobs bill (Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act or the Jobs for Main Street Act) contains a...

MilCon, VA and State Department Funding in Omnibus

The House of Representatives drove home a $447 billion omnibus spending bill yesterday loaded with six of the seven appropriations bills...

TCS Releases Space Security Database

Space is crucial to our national security, and we’ve got the skyrocketing budgets to prove it. The United States spends billions on...

F-22: No More Second Helpings

Goodness, the difference an economic crisis can make. A few years ago, advertisements by defense contractors arguing that the U.S. should...

The President’s Energy Budget

The President’s budget released last week includes $ 26.3 billion for the Department of Energy, a $2.1 billion increase over 2008 and...

Failing Salmon Recovery Efforts are Costing Taxpayers Billions

Over the last two decades, federal agencies have spent more than $8 billion on efforts to restore salmon to the Columbia and Snake River...

Raising Questions About Transportation Spending in House Economic Stimulus Legislation

The transportation portion of the House stimulus package contains more than $43 billion for the Department of Transportation, including...

Water Infrastructure Spending in the House Economic Stimulus

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructs large water projects (dams, levees, pumping sand on beaches)...

Ten Common Sense Reforms for the Army Corps of Engineers

AMERICAN RIVERS · EARTHJUSTICE LEGAL DEFENSE FUND · ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE · FRIENDS OF THE EARTH · MISSISSIPPI RIVER BASIN ALLIANCE ·...

Banking on the Future

Investing in Smart Water Strategies for Pennsylvania and the Nation...

Road to Ruin: The 27 Most Wasteful Road Projects in America

Road to Ruin documents 27 road projects that will drain federal tax dollars, harm communities, and damage the natural environment. In total, these projects would cost federal taxpayers at least $24 billion....

Troubled Waters

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is wasting billions of dollars on environmentally harmful projects, charges a new report by Taxpayers...

Engineering Boondoggles

While Washington is wringing its hands about the automatic across-the-board budget cuts known as...