The week of July 16 was a big one in Washington for Pentagon watchers. The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to approve the fiscal year 2013 Defense Appropriations bill, while the House Armed Services Committee held hearings on the potential impact of upcoming spending cuts on the Pentagon’s budget.The FY2013 ...

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?”

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 ...

Last week’s jobs report for May by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that unemployment grew for the first time in three months, albeit very slowly, up one-tenth of a percentage point to 8.2 percent. Good news or bad news? The news coverage has focused on the “bad,” but the ...

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, National Priorities Project has tracked the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have focused on the tax dollars expended related to the conduct of these wars, and offered comparisons to funding for other government programs to demonstrate the ...

The last U.S. combat forces were withdrawn from Iraq on Dec. 15, 2011. And this past week at the NATO summit in Chicago, member nations endorsed President Obama’s plan to remove most foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.Yet the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and ...

This week the U.S. Senate will consider a series of amendments to the budget resolution. A budget resolution sets out spending and revenue guidelines for Congress’s annual appropriations process.Except that the Senate won’t pass a budget resolution this year. To Hill watchers, this isn’t too surprising – the media is ...

The House and Senate return this week from their spring recess with the seeds of a summer budget stalemate already planted.As required by law, in February President Obama released the Administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2013 (which begins on Oct. 1). Although just a proposal, the annual request serves ...

When I pitched the idea for this blog to my co-workers, my research colleague Mattea quipped, “surrrrre, because when I think about the IRS, I think of fun.”That’s pretty much the sentiment of most Americans when it comes to paying taxes, which is a subject of a lot of jokes. ...

As the Pentagon scrambles to find ways to save money, the Defense Department has included in its fiscal year 2013 budget request a political bombshell – increasing beneficiary contributions to its healthcare programs.The Defense Department’s healthcare network – known as TRICARE – provides a range of benefit plans to active ...