The president announcing that he will not withdraw troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year is a devastating blow. 

Yesterday, in a 70-27 vote, lawmakers in the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which lays out how the Pentagon might spend its 2016 $612 billion budget.

As of last week, the deal is officially in effect as lawmakers have lost their opportunity to block implementation of the plan. WHat happens next?

Last week, Senate Democrats filibustered a vote to reject the Iran deal. What's next?

Earlier this week, President Obama announced that after more than a year and a half of negotiations, the U.S. reached a nuclear deal with Iran. This newly reached deal provides hope that we as a nation will be able to avoid another long and costly war abroad.

On average, Americans believe that approximately a quarter of the US federal budget is spent on foreign aid. It's actually closer to one percent.

In fiscal year 2014, the United States government paid out an astounding $444 billion in federal contracts -- equivalent to almost forty percent of the federal discretionary budget for 2014.

With ISIS in the news again recently and new fears about abilities to contain the threat, we're taking another look at what this fight is costing us. 

In 2014, 27 cents of your income tax dollar went to the military for weapons, base operations, and war, but only 6 cents went to support generations of our nation's veterans.

The OCO slush fund was originally designed to fund our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is now being used to help the Pentagon break existing spending caps.