2011 Blog Archives


Congress, President Agree on FY2011 Spending Plan

Late Friday night, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and President Obama reached agreement on a spending bill that will fund the last six months of Fiscal Year 2011, which ends on September 30, 2011. The agreement is actually two bills -- a seven day continuing resolution that will allow time ...

Blossoms, But No Budget

It’s Cherry Blossom season in Washington, D.C. Each year at this time hundreds of thousands of people from across the country and around the world flock to our nation’s Capitol to stroll along the banks of the Tidal Basin, “ooo-ing” and “ahhh-ing” at the vibrant pink flowers on hundreds of ...

Despite Deep Spending Cuts, GOP Plan Achieves Little Deficit Reduction in 2012

Chairman Ryan’s deep cuts would only achieve modest deficit reductions in 2012The budget proposal released by Rep. Paul Ryan’s this week includes a slew of cuts to “non-security” discretionary programs in 2012.  The deepest cuts are illustrated below.   Rep. Ryan proposes we spend less than half as much as President ...

Potential Rollbacks to Government Transparency

The House of Representatives has proposed to slash the FY11 open data budget from $34 million to $2 million, effectively shutting down sites like Data.gov and USASpending.gov. National Priorities Project would like to put that $32 million savings in context.

Good things afoot for NPP's data

To date, this space has been used by National Priorities Project's budget experts to supplement our datasets and other online resources. As NPP's new database manager, I'd like to add some technical commentary to the mix. There’s a few exciting projects in the works—projects that will extend the reach of our publications, analysis, and curated data.

Updated Data: Federal Tax Collection

This week, the IRS released the 2011 edition of its Data Book. Thank you and congratulations to the IRS on being so quick to release 2011 numbers. As a result, NPP has updated the following Federal Priorities dataset: Federal Tax Collection: updated through 2011

Taking the Budget Off Into the Sunset -- Committee, That Is

On March 16, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) proposed an amendment to a bill reauthorizing two award programs offered by the Small Business Administration. It has not gotten much press, but it proposes serious, long-term changes to how Washington does business and places eight members of Congress in charge of the ...

Continuing Resolution Number 6: The End?

The Senate passed a sixth Continuing Resolution on March 17, 2011, which cuts an additional $6 billion from the Fiscal Year 2011 budget. The FY 2011 year ends September 30, 2011 and Republican leaders are under pressure to meet the $100 billion-cut-goal set by the House Appropriations Committee. As this ...

States Continue to Feel Recession’s Impact

A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has updated data about the impact of the continued struggling economy on state budgets. According to CBPP's latest analysis, 44 states and the District of Columbia are projecting budget shortfalls totaling $112 billion for fiscal year 2012, which ...

What the heck does the federal budget have to do with Michigan?

I had the real privilege of speaking at the Michigan Forum on Jobs and Human Needs on Saturday, March 6, 2001. Sponsored by a great mix of labor, faith, peace and student groups, the event was held in Lansing, Michigan, the state's capital, which is located within Ingham County. Many ...