Debates about the federal budget rage on in Washington. Unfortunately, those debates are based on guesstimates rather than accurate information. That’s because there is no single, comprehensive source for federal spending data, as I wrote in a blog post earlier this week.

Federal spending transparency is not a partisan matter, and it’s not a luxury. It’s an urgent issue. What we need now is the will to make it happen.

NPP supports the DATA Act, which recently passed the House, and we’d like your help to make sure it comes up for a vote in the Senate. If you live in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Ohio, or Wisconsin, you have a Senator on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, where the DATA Act now sits. Don’t let the DATA Act die in committee—ask your Senator to get it to the Senate floor!

If you’re not from one of these states, you should still call or write your Senators. This post from WashingtonWatch tells you how.

And check out this short video, produced by the Data Transparency Coalition. Though it has partisan overtones, it does a great job of demonstrating the fundamental, bi-partisan issue of our broken federal spending data.