Budget Matters Blog

President Obama in the Oval Office/ White House flickr

Today President Obama released his fiscal 2014 budget proposal, which set a record for arriving two months after the legal deadline of the first Monday in February. Here are the top five things to know about the new budget.

5. The president's budget would reduce Social Security cost-of-living adjustments through "chained CPI."

President Obama became the first Democratic president ever to propose reductions in Social Security benefits by endorsing an alternate measure of inflation – known as chained CPI – to shrink cost-of-living adjustments for retirees. The president plans to save $230 ...

This election season, National Priorities Project is launching a suite of materials to arm voters with crucial information about what's at stake in November. And part of being informed is knowing what questions to ask candidates. Here are the top six things to ask your congressional candidates about where they stand on this year's most important issues:

6.  What is the best role for the federal government in improving education in this country? (Read the education fact sheet.)

 Flickr/ Joe Shlabotnik

5.  Do you believe Social Security reform is necessary and, if so, what changes would you support ...

To date, Data Wednesday has focused on the mechanics of using NPP’s Federal Priorities Database—a collection of information we’ve pulled from many, many government agencies and compiled into an easy-to-use search tool.

Beginning next week, we’ll focus less on how-to and more on the concepts important to making sense of our data. What is per-capita, and why is it important? How can you compare indicators and expenditures?

In the meantime, here’s a cheat sheet of what we’ve covered so far.  Give yourself a review session, and we’ll meet you back here next Wednesday ...

A new analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has identified between $1.1 trillion and $2.6 trillion in possible deficit reduction measures that are common to most or all of four of the major deficit reduction proposals circulating in Washington.CRFB found "significant overlap" among the fiscal plans proposed by President Obama, House Republicans, the White House's Debt Reduction Task Force, and the "Domenici-Rivlin" Commission plan. The areas of overlap came in discretionary spending cuts, some minor entitlement reform (not including Social Security) and closing some tax loopholes. Most changes where accepted by only ...

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 Obama proposed on both Transportation and International Affairs.   He would spend 46% less than the President on Energy.  (For a full comparison of President Obama’s and Rep. Ryan’s 2012 budget proposals see NPP’s factsheet.)However, these deep cuts would only have modest impacts on the ...