NPP successfully met our May Gift Challenge, thanks to the generosity of our online community!

Guest blogger Anthony Holley reports on the Hack for Western Mass project to reconcile federal spending data in USASpending.gov with numbers reported in the federal budget.

This past weekend ~100 hackers from all over Massachussetts generously donated their time and expertise for the National Day of Civic Hacking event for Western Mass. This inspiring event was one of 95 held across the country.

Hack for Western Mass was a tremendous success, drawing volunteers from the region and beyond to work on nine local challenges (including some federal budget projects). We were joined by the Sunlight Foundation, the Census Bureau, and a team of small hackers in training.

This weekend is Hack for Western Mass, one of over 90 events taking place across the country for the National Day of Civic Hacking. What are local orgs doing with government data? You'd be surprised!

The special tax break for investment income – also known as capital gains and dividends – will let taxpayers off the hook for more than $61 billion in taxes this year. Most of those tax savings go to a particular kind of taxpayer.

For more than a decade National Priorities Project's Cost of War site has been keeping track of real-time federal spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But now the Cost of War site is going to tackle new terrain.

Millennial America – the generation born between 1981 and 2000 – is bigger than the boomers and values innovation, government stewardship and community investment. That means the time is ripe for consumers and environmentalists to push for better clean energy technologies.

Meeting people from around the world, setting legislative agendas, and going to Capitol Hill - it's just another day at the Sunlight Foundation's Transparency Camp.

A better-than-expected cash flow at the U.S. Treasury has turned May 18 into just any old day.