Reports

President Obama’s health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), creates refundable tax credits to assist certain individuals in purchasing health insurance. Individuals in households below 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) qualify for a tax credit unless they are eligible for Medicare or Medicaid or someone in the household has an offer of “affordable” coverage at work. The PPACA also expands Medicaid by requiring that states enroll all applicants ...

Facing the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, President Obama confronted the crisis by promoting “green jobs” as a major component of his recovery strategy. He promised that these programs would create five million jobs within ten years. He cited the efforts of other nations as the rationale to try and subsidize our way to energy independence. Yet, the other nations who tried this experiment have struggled and after nearly three years and billions of spent taxpayer dollars ...

In the wake of stagnant job creation, an unacceptably high unemployment rate and growing concern that our country is marching towards another recession, the House Committee on Oversight and Government is continuing its examination of regulations that are acting as impediments to job creation. Late last year, the Committee began the most expansive look in more than a decade at the impact that regulations were having on businesses – large and small – the result was input from more than 1,300 ...

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has reviewed public-available data on the stimulus and prepared a comprehensive report that examines stimulus measures as well as how President Obama and his Administration “sold” the program to the public. On both accounts, stimulus failed.

This report explores the effect of Operation Fast and Furious on Mexico. Its lethal drug cartels obtained AK-47 variants, Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles, .38 caliber revolvers, and FN Five-seveNs from Arizona gun dealers who were cooperating with the ATF by continuing to sell to straw purchasers identified in Operation Fast and Furious.

This report is the first in a series regarding Operation Fast and Furious. Possible future reports and hearings will likely focus on the actions of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, the decisions faced by gun shop owners (FFLs) as a result of ATF’s actions, and the remarkably ill-fated decisions made by Justice Department officials in Washington, especially within the Criminal Division and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. This first installment ...

The Oversight and Government Reform Committee has conducted a yearlong investigation into the efficiency, adequacy, and accuracy of the federal response to the Gulf Oil Spill. This on-going investigative effort included three separate fact finding trips to southern Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida, careful examinations of accounts provided by the Administration that directly conflict with the experience of federal and local officials on the ground, as well as a Congressional hearing. ...

The Obama Administration has advanced an agenda that discourages development of domestic carbon-based energy resources. Administration actions include the threat of new federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing, withdrawal of federal lands, both on and offshore, from energy production, increasingly burdensome requirements for oil shale research and development leases, and a de facto moratorium on drilling permits. This strategy has added to permitting delays, created additional layers of ...

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has learned through the course of an eight-month investigation that political staff under DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano have corrupted the agency’s FOIA compliance procedures, exerted political pressure on FOIA compliance officers, and undermined the federal government’s accountability to the American people.

The Administration’s economic strategies employed over the last two years have not succeeded in getting Americans back to work in sufficient numbers... The President has reached out to several organizations representing business interests in the preceding weeks and months and has invited the heads of some of the largest national and multinational companies to share their suggestions for jumpstarting the economy. Businesses that responded to the President overwhelmingly reported that ...