This week the House of Representatives will likely consider the fiscal year 2013 budget resolution, introduced by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Similar to last year’s budget resolution, Chairman Ryan’s proposal looks to cut the overall size of the federal budget and reduce the deficit by a combination of spending cuts and lower taxes intended to stimulate economic growth.Compared to the Obama Administration's fiscal year 2013 budget request, the Ryan proposal reduces projected federal spending by $5.3 trillion over the next decade.  For example, lower projected spending on Medicare would ...

We’ve gotten lots of great e-mails and comments about Tax Day, which we launched on Friday. But there’s been some confusion about what’s included in our breakdown of your federal income tax dollar. There are two main sources of confusion: First, many people have written to ask why Tax Day looks different from the discretionary budget. And second, some folks erroneously thought that we combined payroll taxes with income taxes.

You can see the proposed discretionary budget in Federal Budget 101. Well over 50 percent of discretionary spending funds the military. However, as you saw in Tax ...

Ronda of Kennewick, Washington, wrote in to ask about tax revenues. In particular, she wanted to know if federal revenue has gone down over the past several decades with the enactment of lower tax rates and various tax exemptions.

The answer is yes.

Federal tax revenues as a share of GDP are at their lowest point in half a century. GDP, which stands for Gross Domestic Product, measures the size of the economy. In fiscal 2011, revenues were around $2.3 trillion, or 15.4 percent of GDP — down from a post-World War II high of 20.6 percent in ...

This is where the federal government spent each one of your federal income tax dollars in 2011:

Once we pay our income taxes, they're designated by the U.S. Treasury as "federal funds," which means Congress and the president can use that money to fund just about any government activity. This chart shows how lawmakers decided to spend that money last year.

What do you think? How would you have spent that money if it were up to you? Leave a comment below and tell us about it.

We'll also give you a receipt for where your income ...

The president submitted his fiscal year 2013 budget request to Congress on Feb. 13. Earlier this week, Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee, unveiled his draft budget resolution.

The role of the annual budget resolution is to set the overall spending limits that appropriators will use when they begin work on their annual spending legislation. The resolution sets overall spending limits for each government function, like agriculture, education and the military, but it’s the appropriators who decide what each individual program, like Head Start or energy research, will actually receive. For more on the annual ...

In the last few months, Data Wednesday has covered all of the basics you need to know when using our Federal Priorities Database.

We’ve covered so much ground, in fact, that it’s time for Data Wednesday to go on a hiatus. However, NPP would be more than happy to entertain specific database questions in our new You Ask, We Answer blog feature.

Below is a complete list of the topics we’ve covered in Data Wednesday. Thanks for reading, and be sure to get in touch if there’s something else you’d like to know.

Searching the ...

Nancy Albert, of San Juan, Puerto Rico asks how much do we spend on the CIA, and where in the budget would you find that money?The short answer is, we don't know. Now here's the longer answer, which includes what we do know about what the government spends on intelligence, including the Central Intelligence Agency.U.S. intelligence activities are funded through two budget pots – the National Intelligence Program (NIP) and the Military Intelligence Program (MIP).NIP "topline" funding (that is, the total amount spent) has been a matter of public record since 2007. Prior to that ...

Yesterday the team at National Priorities Project unveiled President Obama’s new budget on our all-new website. I had an interesting discovery while combing through those budget numbers. I found that the president’s spending priorities match pretty closely with the things Americans say they want. Of course the budget is complicated. But let’s say for a moment that it’s as simple as a public opinion polling question.

The Pew Research Center found that 62 percent of Americans want the president to spend more on education, despite concern over deficits. That was the strongest support for increasing any ...

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.

Back in February, we introduced data normalization. The bottom line: it’s hard to compare data across time and geographies accurately unless that data is normalized. In general, normalizing involves dividing “raw” data by a meaningful denominator. The unemployment rate, for example, is calculated by taking the total number of unemployed and dividing it by the number of people in the labor force.

The Federal Priorities Database presents normalized data whenever possible. A ...

On Saturday, March 3, 2012, 350 people packed the Haydenville Congregational Church to celebrate the life and work of National Priorities Project founder Greg Speeter. As a husband, father, brother, mentor, friend, and force-of-nature-community-organizer, Greg touched the lives of people in every corner of our nation.

During the service, led by Haydenville's Senior Pastor Andrea Ayvazian, family and friends shared the lessons they harvested from Greg's beautiful life. Over the next few weeks, NPP will post photos and videos from the memorial service taken by our good friends Jeff Napolitano and Sut Jhally.

For now, please visit the ...

Kris from Concord, California, wrote in to ask how much aid the United States gives to foreign countries.

Foreign aid and diplomacy together comprise around 1 percent of the federal budget, or $56 billion in President Obama’s 2013 budget request.

That money goes toward global poverty alleviation, including a contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, as well as peacekeeping operations conducted by the United Nations and general U.S. diplomatic activities around the world.

That $56 billion does not include foreign military assistance, which is estimated at an additional $14 billion in fiscal 2013 ...

In a recent blog my colleague Mattea noted that a February poll by the Hill of likely voters found that the top priority for 45 percent of respondents was "job creation." In close second, with 40 percent, was "cutting spending." Support for cutting government spending is certainly the result of growing concerns about the federal deficit.As the chart below shows, annual deficits – when the amount of money the government spends exceeds the amount it takes in – are nothing new.  Since 1940 the federal budget has experienced periods of both deficits and surpluses, with deficits becoming the norm in the ...

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.

Two weeks ago, Data Wednesday used percentages to introduce normalization. This week’s post takes a look at per capita, another type of normalization.

As an example, consider this map of FY 2010 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamp) spending.

Using the map’s legend, you can quickly see that California and Texas got the most funding. Not surprising, since those states have the most people.

We can better compare food stamp spending ...

The presidential election is about voters’ vision for how the federal government should serve the American people. National Priorities Project’s Primary Stakes series examines how residents of primary states currently rely on assistance from the federal government, and two Super Tuesday states illustrate that support from the federal government—and taxes paid—can vary widely.

In fiscal 2010, the Ohio state government drew 38 percent of its revenues from the federal government. That money helped the state build roads and fix bridges, among other kinds of projects, and it helped pay the cost of health care for low-income residents ...

Many of our Facebook fans have been asking why we include Social Security in our charts about federal spending. The gist of the questions has been: If Social Security is funded by a dedicated source – taxes taken directly out of our paychecks – then shouldn’t Social Security be shown separately from other kinds of federal spending?

Most of the cost of Social Security is indeed funded out of payroll taxes, which are called “trust funds” because lawmakers can use that money only to fund Social Security. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore Social Security when we examine the ...

Senior research analyst Mattea Kramer looks through the President's budget proposal to find out what is designated for job creation.

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Likely voters said their top priority for President Obama’s 2013 budget was job creation, according to a poll conducted last month by The Hill. The president released his fiscal 2013 budget on Feb. 13, and it includes around $350 billion for job creation, including money for jobs in the short-term, in part through investment in transportation projects that generate construction work and other kinds of immediate employment. The new budget also included a proposal for long-term job creation.

In his State of the Union address in January, President Obama said business leaders aren’t finding the skills they need ...