May 26, 2010 – Subsidyscope presents government data and summary statistics on federal programs and tax policies that provide subsidies to nonprofit organizations. Subsidyscope’s analysis found government data to be of poor quality. However, the analysis also discovered that the nonprofit sector is overwhelmingly subsidized indirectly through tax subsidies.

Subsidyscope determined that the government data on tax subsidies is generally of higher quality than data on grants, contracts and risk transfers because tax expenditures are estimated by one agency, the Treasury Department, while the data on grants, contracts and risk transfers originate from many different agencies that differ in interpretation of, and compliance with, reporting requirements. Thus, the highest quality data coincide with the largest source of subsidies to the nonprofit sector. Read more »

April 29, 2010 – Subsidyscope began posting analysis of the financial bailout in January 2009 and is now providing updates with new information and estimates where available. Click here to read more about changes in estimates of federal subsidies to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, new TARP subsidy projections from CBO, updates about TARP warrants and information about repayments under TARP.

March 4, 2010 – Recent updates to the TARP subsidy estimates indicate that the previously projected cost of the program to the government for fiscal year 2009 has decreased to $152 billion. This is a significant reduction to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate from March 2009, when the long-term costs were expected to be $356 billion. That estimate represented a significant increase from CBO’s previous January 2009 estimate that the program would cost $189 for the FY 2009–2010 period.

Further, January 2010 CBO estimates show that the program will bring in revenue for FY 2010, and then cost the government an additional $16 billion from FY 2011–2020. Pew Economic Policy Group’s Doug Hamilton was quoted in a recent article discussing TARP estimates, in which he confirmed that the projections of TARP’s lifetime costs “are a lot lower than they were last year, mostly because the stock market values have improved so much.”

While TARP cost estimates have decreased considerably, CBO’s recent projections indicate that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will impose relatively large costs on the Treasury; the latest estimate for the costs of Fannie and Freddie total $176 billion for FY 2009-2020. Subsidyscope will be updating these and other bailout related information on its Web site soon.

December 3, 2009 – Finding detailed information on aviation, highway, transit, rail and maritime transportation spending by the federal government is easy using Subsidyscope.org.

Researchers, journalists and the general public are invited to search Subsidyscope's database of over 700,000 entries on federal transportation spending. All content on Subsidyscope is part of the public domain, meaning data can be freely used and cited in other analyses.

To learn more, see this tutorial by Subsidyscope Project Director Marcus Peacock, who explains how to search the transportation database using basic and advanced options. Watch the two-part screencast »

November 24, 2009 – The way American roads are funded is changing. Revenues that predominantly come from users of roads ("user fees") including fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees and tolls, pay for a decreasing share of road costs. Taxes and fees not directly related to highway use ("non-user fees") are making up the difference. The analysis shows that in recent years, these revenues are funding a greater share of highway construction and maintenance projects, with a corresponding decrease in the percentage of user contributions, thereby increasing the financial burden on "non-users."

Using Federal Highway Administration statistics, Subsidyscope has calculated that in 2007, 51 percent of the nation's $193 billion set aside for highway construction and maintenance was generated through user fees—down from 10 years earlier when user fees made up 61 percent of total spending on roads. The rest came from other sources, including revenue generated by income, sales and property taxes, as well as bond issues. Read more »

November 6, 2009 – The Boeing Co. was the biggest beneficiary of long-term loan guarantees by the Export-Import Bank of the United States in fiscal years 2007 and 2008, a Subsidyscope analysis shows. Of the $15.3 billion in guarantees issued by Ex-Im during the two-year period, nearly $10 billion, or 65 percent, went toward the purchase of commercial aircraft made by Chicago-based Boeing. Read more »

October 27, 2009 – Forty-one of Amtrak’s 44 routes lost money in 2008 with losses ranging from nearly $5 to $462 per passenger depending upon the line, according to analysis by Pew’s Subsidyscope.

The line with the highest per passenger subsidy—the Sunset Limited, which runs from New Orleans to Los Angeles—carried almost 72,000 passengers last year. The California Zephyr, which runs from Chicago to San Francisco, had the second-highest per passenger subsidy of $193 and carried nearly 353,000 passengers in 2008. Pew's analysis indicates that the average loss per passenger on all 44 of Amtrak’s lines was $32, about four times what the loss would be using Amtrak's figures: only $8 per passenger. Read more and view interactive Amtrak route map »

October 7, 2009 – Nearly $2 billion for more than 3,100 airport construction and rehabilitation projects has been obligated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) during the past five years even though the projects received low priority ratings, a Subsidyscope review of FAA data has found.

A searchable database released today on Subsidyscope includes National Priority Ratings (NPRs) for every project awarded a grant under the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program (AIP) from fiscal year 2005 through most of fiscal year 2009. Users may search by airport name, code or state, and sort findings by NPR (ranging from 0 to 100, with higher numbers being the highest-priority projects), congressional district or whether funding came through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Read more »