One week ago NPP launched State Smart, a look at federal dollars and how they flow between states and the U.S. federal government.

The Washington Post did a great write-up of the project and why it matters:

“What do you do when the government kills a valuable dataset? Build your own, of course.

That’s what some staffers working independently at two think tanks have been up to for the better part of the past year. The results of that labor debut today for one group. The National Priorities Project, a nonprofit focused on making the federal budget accessible to the public, is unveiling a website, State Smart, that offers visitors a look at dozens of ways in which federal dollars are funneled to states and vice versa.”

We heard from people in Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, DC, Iowa, Arizona, Alabama, Tennessee, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, Wisconsin, Oregon, Florida, Ohio, Connecticut, Arkansas, Georgia, Maine, Rhode Island, Louisiana, California, and Oklahoma, and feedback continues to roll in. There was a pent-up demand for these numbers, and we’re proud to provide this information that the government no longer publishes.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a deeper dive into individual states, but to celebrate week one we present our top five list of most-visited State Smart states:

5. Virginia
4. New York
3. Texas
2. Massachusetts
1. California

Want to see your state on the leaderboard? Share the link and get clicking: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/smart/