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.

There's a new dataset available in the Federal Priorities Database: Nuclear Energy Research and Development: shows U.S. Federal spending (by state and by county) on research, development, and demonstration of nuclear energy and its underlying sciences.

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 ...

Nancy Albert, of San Juan, Puerto Rico asks how much do we spend on the CIA, and where in the budget would you find that money?The short answer is, we don't know. Now here's the longer answer, which includes what we do know about what the government spends on intelligence, ...

Kris from Concord, California, wrote in to ask how much aid the United States gives to foreign countries. Foreign aid and diplomacy together comprise around 1 percent of the federal budget, or $56 billion in President Obama’s 2013 budget request. That money goes toward global poverty alleviation, including a contribution ...

On February 14, 2012 the Obama Administration released its proposed Fiscal Year 2013 budget for the federal government. The request includes $525.4 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD) in Fiscal Year 2013, which begins on October 1, 2012. Adjusted for inflation, this is 2.6 percent below FY2012 levels, the ...

Senior research analyst Chris Hellman examines the cost of war up to this point, and looks at what will be changing in the next few years.    

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, National Priorities Project has tracked the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Recent events including the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq and the winding down of the troop “surge” in Afghanistan have led to the question – what’s going to ...

Last week Defense Secretary Leon Panetta offered up a preview of the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget request. The request for FY2013 is projected at $525 billion for the Pentagon’s annual “base” budget, not including war costs and the nuclear weapons-related activities of the Department of Energy.Adjusted for inflation this ...

Senior research analyst Chris Hellman explains changes at the Pentagon.