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Comparing national corporate tax rates
By Joshua Hatch Mar 28, 2011 12:36 p.m.Last week came news that GE has avoided having to pay any -- ANY -- corporate income tax in the United States. As reported in the New York Times, that feat, despite earning $14.2 billion in worldwide profits ($5.1 billion in the U.S.), is due to "innovative accounting" and "fierce lobbying," as well as a large stable of former government officials from the IRS and tax-writing Congressional committees. The article goes on to state that the U.S. has one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world. But that statement is somewhat misleading, as you'll see below: like General Electric, the effective tax rate of U.S. companies--what they actually pay--is a lot lower than the statutory tax rate--the percentage of corporate income Congress says they should pay.
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Update on House disbursements: A few notes on how to use the data
By Anupama Narayanswamy Mar 24, 2011 1:56 p.m.We've received a few calls about the House disbursements data we published, questioning the total amount spent by various offices. The House Committee on Administration provides two sets of numbers: summary numbers for each office's spending by quarter, including a grand total and a breakdown by category, and detailed files listing every disbursement reported for that quarter. There is a discrepancy between the totals reported in the summary section and the totals arrived at by adding all of the individual disbursements reported in the detail view of our downloadable data. Despite the discrepancy, a review of the data shows that both sets of numbers are accurate, as far as they go.
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One year after passage, health care reform continues to generate lobbying and legal fees
By Sarah Dorsey Mar 23, 2011 3:07 p.m.One year ago today, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. The legislative process that led to the bill's enactment proved to be a boon to lobbyists, including former aides to key members. Industry exerted influence on the administration and members of Congress from early on in the process, and continued lobbying after the bill was passed.
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New federal insurance office has vast power to collect data
By Nancy Watzman Mar 23, 2011 2:19 p.m.Over a year since the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial law, the new Federal Insurance Office, which has broad authority to collect data from the $934 billion industry, finally has a director.
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Congressional office spending by district
By Joshua Hatch Mar 22, 2011 7:11 p.m.Earlier we reported on Congressional office spending. It's one thing to see a list of the top spenders, but it's something else to see that spending mapped according to congressional districts. So that's just what we've done here. Below is a map of 434 congressional districts (we have no data for New Mexico's 3rd district), color coded according to spending. Take a look for yourself (the darker the color, the more the member spent):
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House Members, Committees and Offices Spend $1.36 Billion in 2010
By Anupama Narayanswamy Mar 21, 2011 10:21 a.m.In 2010, members, committees and other offices of the U.S. House of Representatives spent more than $1.36 billion on salaries, benefits, office equipment, travel, consultants and other expenses. Of that, the largest expense--about $1 billion--was for salaries and benefits, followed by spending on rent and communication costs, technology and related maintenance costs.
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Big business seeks exemption from derivatives rules
By Nancy Watzman Mar 16, 2011 1:29 p.m.Some of Washington’s most powerful trade associations and big corporations are pushing to get an exemption from derivatives regulations mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial law—and House Republicans are planning to introduce legislation to do just that.
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Sunlight Live covers gas price hearing
By Joshua Hatch Mar 16, 2011 10:40 a.m.Tomorrow, when the Committee on Natural Resources will hold a full committee hearing on gas prices and U.S. jobs, the Sunlight Foundation will spin up another instance of its data and live-blogging Sunlight Live platform to cover it live.
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Nuclear power plants live along fault lines
By Joshua Hatch Mar 15, 2011 3:04 p.m.As recent events have shown in Japan, nuclear power plants are just as vulnerable to natural disasters as anything else. So here at Sunlight we were curious about the locations of domestic nuclear reactors. Using data from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Geological Survey, we generated the following map, which shows the location of the aforementioned reactors (there are 104 of them) vis-a-vis geological fault lines. We also included locations of significant historical earthquakes. Take a look and see if we might be vulnerable to a nuclear disaster if/when "the big one" hits, and click on the red dots to learn more about each nuclear power plant:
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Data lacking on overdraft fees
By Nancy Watzman Mar 14, 2011 1 p.m.More than six months after new federal rules went into effect that prohibit banks from charging consumers overdraft fees unless they “opt in” to such an arrangement, government data are lacking on how this has changed banks’ bottom lines.
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As Renco lobbies and Peru deliberates, Doe Run Peru remains idle
By Keenan Steiner Mar 8, 2011 11:03 a.m.Doe Run Peru, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Renco Group and the subject of an ongoing battle between that firm and the government of Peru, has a bumpy history in La Oroya since it acquired smelting operations from the government of Peru there in 1997. The firm directly provided 3,500 jobs in Peru, gained the support of many workers and local people, and claims to be a more responsible environmental caretaker than its state-owned predecessor.
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Current and former officials intervene on company’s behalf in battle with Peru
By Keenan Steiner Mar 8, 2011 11:03 a.m.Battling the government of Peru over an inactive metal smelter in one of the most polluted places on earth, billionaire Ira Rennert’s Renco Group hired eight former government officials from five lobbying firms in a span of 82 days since November.
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Geithner meets with Obama campaign fundraiser
By Nancy Watzman Mar 4, 2011 11:36 a.m.Penny Pritzker, who served as President Obama’s finance chair during his 2008 campaign and whose name was mentioned as a possible U.S. Commerce Secretary, met with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and several other top government heavyweights to discuss Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), according to meeting logs released by the agency this week.
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Chamber of Commerce meets with CFTC chairman
By Nancy Watzman Mar 2, 2011 12:33 p.m.Yesterday a lobbyist and executives representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has criticized the whistleblower provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial law, met with Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to discuss the issue.
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