Primary voters in Michigan head to the polls on Feb. 28 to weigh in on the Republican nominating contest. Michigan has been hard hit by the Great Recession, and that will affect voters’ outlook in choosing their Republican nominee and a president in November. One thing the presidential election is about is voters’ vision for how the federal government should serve the American people, so National Priorities Project took a look at how Michigan currently benefits from federal spending.

The average Michigan resident received $5,846 from the federal government in 2010—benefits that largely came through the Social Security ...

National Priorities Project's executive director Jo Comerford explains NPP's Twelve Zeros campaign, three weeks of bite sized information about the President's budget proposal.

On February 14, 2012 the Obama Administration released its proposed Fiscal Year 2013 budget for the federal government. The request includes $525.4 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD) in Fiscal Year 2013, which begins on October 1, 2012. Adjusted for inflation, this is 2.6 percent below FY2012 levels, the first real decrease in the Pentagon's annual "base" budget in over a decade.The Defense Department plans to reduce spending by a total of $259 billion over five years and $487 billion over ten years. These figures do not include funding for the nuclear weapons activities of ...

Our latest data story highlights some of the historical federal spending patterns for several grant programs featured in President Obama's budget proposal for fiscal year 2013.

As part of President Obama's budget proposal for fiscal year 2013, the White House released a series of tables that show, for each state, proposed federal spending amounts for 34 major state and local grant programs: everything from food, nutrition, and health aid to transportation funding.

These programs account for almost 80 percent of total grant spending by the federal government. In the coming weeks, NPP will be releasing them in an ...

This is the latest entry in NPP’s weekly Data Wednesday series, a getting-started guide to NPP’s Federal Priorities Database.  All previous posts are archived here.

When looking at data, you may hear or read the phrase normalization. Simply put, normalization is transforming a set of data so that they may be compared in a meaningful way. Still sounds geeky? Although you may not realize it, you use normalized data all the time.

A common example is unemployment numbers. Knowing the total number of unemployed people in an area is interesting, but it isn’t enough information to compare ...

National Priorities Project executive director Jo Comerford examines the discretionary portion of the President's proposed federal budget. Don't remember the difference between discretionary and mandatory spending? Refresh your memory here!

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 ...

Today President Obama released his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, which includes $3.67 trillion in new budget authority, a 3.7 percent reduction from 2012 levels. The budget estimates $3.8 trillion in total spending in 2013, which includes some spending that was authorized in the 2012 budget.

The new budget includes $350 billion for job creation. A survey conducted on Feb. 9 found that Americans ranked job creation as their top priority for the president’s new budget, followed by deficit reduction.

Thirty-one percent of the president’s budget funds discretionary spending, which includes the military as well ...

Senior research analyst Chris Hellman examines the cost of war up to this point, and looks at what will be changing in the next few years.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, National Priorities Project has tracked the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Recent events including the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq and the winding down of the troop “surge” in Afghanistan have led to the question – what’s going to happen to funding for U.S. operations in these countries?The answer is in three parts:•    Annual funding will be lower than in the past,•    The wars will continue to draw on taxpayer resources even after combat operations in both countries have ended, and•    The funding stream will ...

This is the latest entry in NPP’s weekly Data Wednesday series, a getting-started guide to NPP’s Federal Priorities Database.  All previous posts are archived here.

A post from a few weeks ago showed one way to share the results of a database search. In that example, you grab a hyperlink that goes right to the Federal Tax Collections data, which can then be shared via e-mail and social media.

If you have your own website, another way to share information from the Federal Priorities Database is to embed the interactive map right into a web page. After you ...

Colorado residents will caucus today to decide their pick for the Republican nominee for president. Choosing a presidential candidate in part means caucus-goers will consider how they want the government to spend their federal tax dollars. National Priorities Project took a look at how much Colorado residents currently pay in federal taxes, and what they get in return.

On average Colorado residents each paid $7,003 in federal taxes in 2010. Federal taxes include income and payroll taxes as well as estate taxes and the federal excise tax on gasoline, cigarettes, and other goods. Coloradans pay more in taxes than ...

Senior research analyst Mattea Kramer examines federal spending in Colorado ahead of the state's Feb. 6th caucus to decide its Republican nominee for president.

Last week Defense Secretary Leon Panetta offered up a preview of the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget request. The request for FY2013 is projected at $525 billion for the Pentagon’s annual “base” budget, not including war costs and the nuclear weapons-related activities of the Department of Energy.Adjusted for inflation this is a roughly 3 percent decrease from current levels. According to Department of Defense (DoD) projections, the Pentagon’s base budget will drop $28 billion between FY2010 and FY2013, after inflation. That’s a 5 percent decrease over seven years. Meanwhile, the Pentagon hopes to achieve a ...