Once again, NPP contributed facts about the budget, taxes, and federal spending to the Presidential Debate conversation happening on Twitter. Here are some of our most popular tweets.

NPP's research team live-tweeted and fact-checked the first debate of the 2012 Presidential Election. If you missed, here are our top 5 tweets.

The first of three presidential debates is scheduled for Wednesday. We don't know precisely what topics the candidates will cover, but we can make some educated guesses. And one reader from Duluth, Minnesota, wrote in to ask us about a likely topic: the much-debated 2009 stimulus package, which greatly increased federal spending for several years. The president and his team were famously over-optimistic about how quickly the economy would recover, but that's a separate issue from whether or not the stimulus helped ease the devastating effects of the downturn. Here's the low-down.

This election season has put a lot of focus on Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly. There’s been less emphasis on Medicaid, the health program for low-income Americans, though both President Obama and Governor Romney would dramatically change Medicaid. Currently Medicaid serves mainly children and those senior citizens who require long-term care.

A few weeks ago, with the announcement of Rep. Paul Ryan as Gov. Romney’s running mate, we wrote about how the two presidential candidates represent starkly different visions for this country in the years to come. One issue we didn’t cover in detail is the candidates’ projected budget deficits.

William from Denver, Colorado, asks: “Is there a way to show whether or not the private sector is actually ‘doing fine?’ In TV commercials I see that Mitt Romney is criticizing President Obama for saying that.” Great minds can disagree about what constitutes “fine,” so let’s look at a firm measure of private sector health – the most recent jobs report. It didn’t contain a lot of good news, though there was perhaps one bright spot.