National Priorities Project

Five billion dollars is not huge in a federal discretionary budget of more than $1 trillion. But it’s an incredibly meaningful sum to any number of smaller federal government programs.

As Trump threatens not to sign the appropriations bill, the battle over the border wall continues to hold up federal government funding.

Military veterans are speaking out against the border stunt, calling it a “profound betrayal of our military.”

The U.S. federal budget is a cerebral subject, seemingly reserved for the technocratic elite to calculate, deconstruct, recompose, modify, and amend. But it affects people’s daily lives in profound ways, and not just in America.

The US military budget sucks up an enormous amount of resources without making the world more peaceful or democratic. Here are a few ways we could better spend that $717 billion.

House Republicans are doubling down on reforms that awarded tax giveaways to corporations and the wealthy.

Is the GOP is rushing this process due to fear of losing their House Majority or because they think it will help their chances during midterms?

Democrats and Republicans rubber-stamped a severely bloated war budget.

Ideas like Medicare for All are written off as fantasy thinking by the same people who support virtually unlimited military spending.

If Trump’s concern is spreading the burden of security, why does he want the U.S. to ramp up its military spending?

But for the Korea talks to work, the administration will have to value diplomacy far more than it did on Iran.

Instead of stigmatizing struggling people, a jobs guarantee would do far more to lift poverty than Trump’s mean-spirited work requirement ever could.

The Trump tax plan will likely lead to a corporate income tax cut of $135 billion in 2018 alone.

This year, average taxpayers paid twice as much to corporate military contractors than to caring for all veterans combined.

Surprise! Corporations and billionaires are paying way less in taxes, with some profitable corporations paying nothing at all.

Help us spread the word about our latest analysis, “How Your Personal Income Taxes Were Spent in 2017”

Our analysis found that the average taxpayer put in 29 working days in 2017 to pay Pentagon contractors.

Trump’s budget proposal has something to hurt almost everyone, but it’s a perfect storm for the poor.

As another corporate giveaway, the plan would put major public infrastructure up for sale, and would loosen environmental rules designed to protect local communities.

There’s a huge opportunity cost to America’s enormous military budget.