March 17, 2009 02:07 PM | Permalink | 
A Closer Look at Programs Hidden Within the Tax Code Would Enhance Government Transparency
In his recently released budget blueprint, President Obama promised to overhaul the way the federal government judges its own effectiveness.1 In addition to opening the evaluation process to input from the public, the Congress, and outside experts, the President pledged that the evaluation would take a more comprehensive perspective. Specifically, President Obama declared that “programs will not be measured in isolation, but assessed in the context of other programs that are serving the same population or meeting the same goals.” In response, Citizens for Tax Justice Senior Analyst, Carl Davis, stated today, “If the President’s goal is for these reviews to be truly comprehensive, the evaluation process will need to be expanded to include the hundreds of billions of dollars devoted to programs we administer through the tax code — commonly known as tax expenditures.”
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