“The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (generally referred to as the Medicare Modernization Act, or MMA) substantially expanded the federal Medicare program by creating the prescription drug benefit known as Part D. In fiscal year 2013, Medicare Part D covered 39 million people. The federal government spent $59 billion net of… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: July 2014
Survey Assesses How Uninsured Californians Fared After ACA Open Enrollment
“Last summer, just before the first open enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) conducted a baseline survey of California’s uninsured nonelderly adult population. After the open enrollment period came to a close, we conducted a second survey with the same group of individuals who participated in the baseline… Continue Reading
Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement
“On July 30, 2014, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) directed the Open Market Trading Desk (the Desk) at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to purchase additional agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) at a pace of about $10 billion per month and longer-term Treasury securities at a pace of about $15 billion per month,… Continue Reading
A National Consensus: Cell Phone Location Records Are Private – EFF
“The Fourth Amendment protects us from “unreasonable” government searches of our persons, houses, papers and effects. How courts should determine what is and isn’t reasonable in our increasingly digital world is the subject of a new amicus brief we filed today in San Francisco federal court. At issue is historical cell site data—the records of the cell towers a customer’s… Continue Reading
The FRBNY Staff Underlying Inflation Gauge: UIG
Marlene Amstad, Simon M Potter and Robert Rich – Working Papers No 453, July 2014 “Monetary policymakers and long-term investors would benefit greatly from a measure of underlying inflation that uses all relevant information, is available in real-time, and forecasts inflation better than traditional underlying inflation measures such as core inflation measures. This paper presents the “Federal Reserve Bank of… Continue Reading
Census State and Local Government Finances Historical Tables
“A new online data tool shows statistics for the finances of state and local governments, such as revenue, expenditures and debt, aggregated to the state level for fiscal years 2004 to 2011. These statistics are also available via the DataFerrett tool.” Continue Reading
New GAO Reports – Defense Contracting, Federal Grants, Healthcare.gov, Littoral Combat Ship
DEFENSE CONTRACTING: Factors DOD Considers When Choosing Best Value Processes Are Consistent with Guidance for Selected Acquisitions, GAO-14-584: Published: Jul 30, 2014. Publicly Released: Jul 30, 2014. FEDERAL GRANTS: Agencies Performed Internal Control Assessments Consistent with Guidance and Are Addressing Internal Control Deficiencies, GAO-14-539: Published: Jul 30, 2014. Publicly Released: Jul 30, 2014. HEALTHCARE.GOV: Contract Planning and Oversight Practices Were Ineffective… Continue Reading
Comparison of House & Senate Versions of the USA FREEDOM Act – CDT
“Today Senator Patrick Leahy introduced a new version of the USA FREEDOM Act. The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) supports the Senate version of the USA FREEDOM Act and urges Congress to pass the bill quickly without weakening it. This bill addresses many issues identified by CDT as problematic in the House version of the bill, and includes many key changes… Continue Reading
Federal and State Wiretaps Up 5% in 2013 According to Annual Report
EPIC: “The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has issued the 2013 Wiretap Report, detailing the use of surveillance authorities by law enforcement agencies. This annual report, one of the most comprehensive issued by any agency, provides an insight into the debate over surveillance authorities and the use of privacy-enhancing technologies. In 2013, wiretap applications increased… Continue Reading
New GAO Reports – Budget Issues, Combatting Nuclear Smuggling, Federal Real Property, 401(K) Plans, Medicaid Financing, Flood Insurance, USDA Farm Programs
BUDGET ISSUES: Opportunities to Reduce Federal Fiscal Exposures Through Greater Resilience to Climate Change and Extreme Weather, GAO-14-504T: Published: Jul 29, 2014. Publicly Released: Jul 29, 2014. COMBATING NUCLEAR SMUGGLING: Past Work and Preliminary Observations on Research and Development at the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, GAO-14-783T: Published: Jul 29, 2014. Publicly Released: Jul 29, 2014. FEDERAL REAL PROPERTY: Better Guidance and… Continue Reading
National Taxpayer Advocate FY 2015 Objectives – Report
“To date, fiscal year (FY) 2014 has been an active year for the IRS. In addition to accepting the National Taxpayer Advocate’s proposal to adopt a Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TBOR), the IRS ran a generally successful filing season (although taxpayer services were sub-optimal largely due to staffing limitations), instituted a more equitable approach to… Continue Reading
Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity
New America Foundation – “It has been over a year since The Guardian reported the first story on the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs based on the leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, yet the national conversation remains largely mired in a simplistic debate over the tradeoffs between national security and individual privacy. It is time… Continue Reading
