This month the first voters head to the polls to decide who will be the Republican nominee for president. National Priorities Project took a look at the extent to which residents of the first primary states, Iowa and New Hampshire, receive federal support—even if they may be unaware of it. ...

Congress has passed a budget for Fiscal Year 2012. Did you miss it?If you did, that’s understandable, given all the noise coming out of Washington in recent weeks about extending the Social Security payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed.But Congress actually did pass an FY2012 budget, ...

This week’s headlines from Washington have focused on an end of year budget deal that would avoid a federal government shutdown and the expiration of a temporary reduction in workers’ Social Security payroll deductions. Two important issues, to be sure, but left somewhere in the dust is another and arguably ...

In the latest installment of our weekly Budget Brief videos, senior research analyst Chris Hellman explains the payroll tax cuts enacted last year, the proposed extension of these cuts into 2012, and the debate over how to pay for them.

I stayed up half the night engrossed in this book. It’s that compelling and well designed.  In fact, I’ve been an organizer and activist for 45 years, and I’ve never seen a resource as useful, timely and visually appealing as the just-released Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a ...

 Last week I wrote about how automatic, across-the-board cuts scheduled to take effect in 2013 may never take place—because a new Congress can choose not to uphold budget cuts legislated by our current Congress.  But it’s also worth asking, if the next Congress does uphold these automatic cuts, called “sequestration,” ...

November 23rd is the deadline for the super committee, officially named the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. They’ve all but announced failure to come up with even $1 of their $1.2 trillion deficit reduction task. Since the creation of the super committee, we’ve been hearing there would be automatic, ...

With its Nov. 23 deadline looming, members of the congressional “Super Committee” have a range of options as they try to find at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade. Here are some of the possibilities:A Grand Bargain:  President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner tried negotiating ...

Just like last year, the new fiscal year began on October 1, 2011 with no federal budget in place. And just like last year, the U.S. government is being funded through a Continuing Resolution (CR) – temporary spending legislation that provides funding at current levels for any federal agency whose ...

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) between 1979 and 2007 income for the top 1 percent of households grew by 275 percent. The next 19 percent of households saw their income grow by 65 percent. Income grew 40 percent for the next 60 percent of households. The bottom 20 ...