Tom from St. Paul, Minnesota, wrote in to ask why our federal budget numbers don't combine funding for veterans with military spending, since they're both part of a larger national security category.

This week we announced the release of our new book A People’s Guide to the Federal Budget, and in yesterday’s blog post we admitted to being idealists: A book can change the world, we said. But it’s not just because we’re idealists that we think so. Consider the evidence.

National Priorities Project is thrilled to announce the release of our new book, A People's Guide to the Federal Budget. Call us idealists, but we at NPP believe that a little information goes a long way, and that a book can change history. Washington belongs to the people, and this book is the federal budget for the rest of us.

The White House used to put out a Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget every year, but it was discontinued during the George W. Bush presidency. President Obama has not resurrected the practice. Meanwhile, valuable information about how the federal government spends our tax dollars is going extinct

Our final pie of Pie Week! We showed you total federal spending, mandatory spending, and discretionary spending. Today's flavor of pie? Where the money comes from to fund the federal budget.

Pie Week continues today with the part of the federal budget that often receives the most scrutiny: discretionary spending.

This week we're talking about pie. Federal budget pies, that is. The first pie we're looking at is total federal spending. Join us every day this week for a different slice of pie.

In some charts, you see that military is more than half the budget. But in others, you see that it's much less than that. Let's settle this once and for all.

Betty from Hailey, Idaho, wrote to us about subsidies for oil companies. Thanks for writing, Betty – it's an interesting subject. Warning: We may have to get a bit wonky.

President Obama released a budget in February, the House passed a very different budget in March, and the Senate has declined to do a budget. The seeds are planted for stalemate this election year. Why can't Congress just pass a budget without all this conflict?