National Priorities Project
The United States federal budget is a powerful resource: at $4 trillion, it’s about a fifth of the U.S. economy. What’s more, those resources come from us: a government for and by the people.
There is enormous power in these shared resources. We can harness that power to make our lives better, to create a more just and humane society. On the other hand, that power can be used to perpetuate destructive cycles of war, militarism, violence and oppression that go back to our nation’s founding and before.
Budgets are moral documents. It’s our responsibility as Americans to create a federal budget that upholds our most cherished values.
The National Priorities Project works to inspire and inform movements and individuals so that our federal resources prioritize peace, shared prosperity, and economic prosperity for all. We are the only nonprofit, non-partisan federal budget research organization in the nation with the mission to make the federal budget accessible to the American public.
We empower people to affect change through the creation of understandable, down to earth trainings, analysis, graphics and reports to illustrate how the federal budget affects us all, from the local level to the international.
Latest Work

Pentagon Increases in 2022 Could Almost Fund Build Back Better

U.S. Still Spends More on Military Than Next Nine Countries Combined

Only in Top Gun Can the Military Solve All Our Problems

We Won't Trade E-Carceration for Detention - We Must End All Immigrant Incarceration

It's Almost As If Military Spending Isn't the Key to Peace

Cut Pentagon Spending, Save the Planet

Tax Day 2022: We Got The Receipts

Biden FY 2023 Budget Maintains Trump-Era Spending on ICE and CBP

About That $900 You Gave Pentagon Contractors

Biden FY 2023 Budget Puts War Before Human Needs

Our Skyrocketing Military Spending Helps Pentagon Contractors—Not Ukraine

As Climate Change Worsens, the United States Under-Delivers on Finance Promises to Hardest Hit Countries

It’s Time to Divest from Systems of Harm and Build an Infrastructure of Care

Our Military Budget Is More Lopsided Than Ever

Military Aid to Ukraine Balloons — But We Need Diplomacy and Funding for Human Needs

Budget Deal Prioritizes War and Militarization Over Critical Needs, Again

Biden’s State of the Union Address Showcased Disconnect in Spending Priorities

The U.S. COMPETES with China — At What Cost?

Will the U.S. Stoke War in Ukraine While the World Burns?