Karen from Colorado asks us, “What’s a block grant?” She said she’s been hearing that phrase a lot without knowing what it means – or if it’s important. It’s a great question, Karen, because block grants are important. They’re part of the reason a group of nuns recently began the Nuns on the Bus cross-country tour.

Today the Supreme Court upheld nearly all provisions of the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform legislation also referred to as Obamacare. The most controversial part of the law — the individual mandate requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance — was upheld. One part of the law was struck down.

With the end of the current fiscal year rapidly approaching, what many Washington watchers have long predicted appears to be true – Congress will not act on next year’s budget by the October 1 deadline.“But wait,” you’re saying, “October is a long way from now. How can you be sure?”

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.

The Supreme Court is expected to announce any day now its ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health care reform legislation. The central question of the case is whether Congress has the authority to require Americans to purchase health insurance.

C. Chandler of Newcastle, WA, asks, “I keep hearing how bad these automatic spending cuts will be for the Pentagon. Will any other programs get cut?”We get a LOT of questions about the automatic spending cuts – known as sequestration – called for under the Budget Control Act (BCA) of ...

This is a guest post from Hudson Hollister, Executive Director of the Data Transparency Coalition and former Counsel for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. President Obama appears to agree that the Recovery.gov model is the future of federal spending transparency. In June 2011, he established a new panel of ...

Bob from Vacaville, California, wrote in to ask us for some fact checking. He said he hears all the time that the size of the federal government has ballooned under President Obama, and wondered if that could be true given all of the budget cuts.

This is a guest post from Hudson Hollister, Executive Director of the Data Transparency Coalition and former Counsel for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Three and a half years ago, Congress passed the federal stimulus law, which required 28 federal agencies to spend hundreds of billions of ...

The Challenge NPP is participating in the Knight News Challenge, seeking funding for the mobile piece of our new Backyard Budget project. Please help us strengthen our proposal by reading it and telling us what you think; you can do this on the News Challenge website. What is Backyard Budget ...