A report yesterday from Bureau of National Affairs (subscription required) cites several unnamed congressional sources saying the House plans to revive a statutory pay-as-you-go budget law in June. Statutory pay-go would require budgetary offsets for increases in permanent spending programs or tax cuts. Expect the measure to move through the lower house quickly, but resistance in the Senate, where lawmakers have questioned the effectiveness of the budget tool, is casting doubt on the measure's future.

In the House, it is a matter of legislative priorities. In exchange for support from Blue Dog Democrats on the FY 2010 budget, House leaders promised to have a pay-go law passed before bringing any big-ticket bills to the floor. Some Democratic lawmakers in the Senate, meanwhile, have shown reluctance to adopt a new pay-go law. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, has stressed that while he backs pay-go, he does not believe it is a substitute for tackling major issues like federal health and retirement programs or reforming the tax system. Conrad has also questioned the House's past tendency simply to adjust the baseline of the budget to slip spending increases under the limited procedural pay-go constraints currently in place. Conrad contends this sets a dangerous precedent.

While there are several ways to cheat pay-go, such as labeling spending as emergency expenditures to prevent it from counting in budget numbers, adjusting the baseline of the budget could set precedent for future congresses to balloon the budget. As Conrad contends, "If we can do that, where does it end?" Opponents of pay-go further claim that Congress has never allowed the equalizing mechanism, across-the-board spending cuts, to take place because they use budget gimmicks to circumvent the rules. Proponents, on the other hand, claim that, while Congress may cheat the system occasionally, the threat of mandatory spending cuts helps to control spending. We'll have to wait and see what June brings us.

Image by Flickr user jtyerse used under a Creative Commons license.

A federal judge struck down a Florida electioneering law that requires groups to register with the state and submit financial reports if they mention candidates or issues in publications or on Web sites. The rules also applied to individuals who spend $100 or more on electioneering communications. The judge ruled that the law unconstitutionally limits political free speech. According to the Associated Press, "[t]he law exempts pre-existing newsletters distributed only to a group's members, statements in the news media and public debates or forums that include at least two opposing candidates or one person on each side of an issue." The state has announced it will appeal the decision.

The Broward Coalition of Condominiums, Homeowners Associations and Community Organizations filed the lawsuit after the group wanted to print a newsletter including information on candidates and constitutional amendments in November 2008. For more information on the case, visit the Institute for Justice.

To celebrate the first 100 days of the Recovery Act, the Vice President's office released a report on May 27 called "100 Days, 100 Projects," highlighting 100 projects funded under the Recovery Act. The Administration is calling the report a "snapshot" of how the Recovery Act is affecting people all across the nation. And "snapshot" is the perfect term for this report, since it gives us a quick glimpse into the information the Administration has collected so far, but it leaves us with more questions than answers.

The problem is with details in the report. For each project, it shows who's getting money, how much money, and for what purpose. This level of detail is a little confusing. For a while now, the Administration (through Recovery.gov) has been saying that recipient information is not going to be available until October of this year. So far, the only information available on Recovery.gov are the vague program plans the agencies released last week, which do not list who is getting Recovery Act funds, and often don't even list the amount of money each project is getting.

But, if the Administration doesn't have detailed information on recipients, and won't have it until October, where is this new information coming from? It doesn't help that the Vice President's report is completely devoid of any source information, so we have no idea where it came from. One has to believe that the report is based off of information from the agencies, since it is an "official" government report (although Bill Allison from the Sunlight Foundation is doing a good job of questioning where this information actually came from). If it is official government information, then they clearly already have a great deal of information about Recovery projects from around the country, as this new report shows. Apparently, they know very specific details about at least 100 projects, such as the grant or contract amount, the recipient, and the project involved. So why isn't this information on Recovery.gov? Nor is any of this information found on USAspending.gov, which has started posting detailed information about a few of the early Recovery contracts and grants. The Administration has the information, since they made this document, but they're still saying that it won't be made public until October? It seems absurd. It's like going to the store and asking for a product, and having the manager tell you they won't get it in for another four months, despite the fact that you can see the product behind them in the storeroom.

So which is it? Does the Administration have the data or do they not have the data? It doesn't seem likely that they are waiting for all the information before filing a report, since USAspending.gov is apparently already releasing information on some Recovery contracts (none of which are in the 100 Days report, though). So what's going on? Things like this 100 Days report don't give us a lot of confidence that the Administration is moving as fast as possible to release Recovery Act information as soon as it is available, or even that everyone in the Administration is on the same page. Sadly, this document, which was supposed to be an effort at transparency and accountability, only highlights how much more information we need about the Recovery.

Image by Flickr user pfala. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Today, the Obama administration released a memo requiring reviews of overclassification and the current Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)/ Sensitive but Unclassified (SBU) process.  The memo does not dictate any new procedures on how agencies must handle such designated material.  However, it does establish an interagency 90-day review process to advise the administration on actions it should take to advance on previous efforts to reform these problems.

In terms of CUI, the memo is less than what was hoped for by some open-government advocates.  The memo recognizes certain problems such as the limitation of CUI controls to terrorism-related information only and that the implementation process is not expected to be finalized until 2013.  However, there are several other problems that do not seem to be recognized at all.  Past abuses of CUI have created enormous roadblocks to our system of checks and balances when agencies use the designations to withhold information from Congressional investigations and Judicial proceedings.  Further, the memo does not ask the interagency panel to look into establishing time limits to how long CUI control labels remain active…Such limits exist for classified info, but not CUI.

The upside is that the interagency task force established by the memo was directed to establish recommendations that balance the principles of openness, standardization of markings and handling of sensitive but unclassified information, and the need to keep certain information private.  Hopefully the taskforce will go beyond the issues listed in the administration’s memo.