Fairly nonpartisan sources

• The US Environmental Protection Agency has been criticized by environmentalists as being too business-friendly, but recent statements from the agency on climate change suggest it's warming up to environmentalist views. The US Climate Change Science Program, a government agency, also seems to feel to speak its mind.

• Pew is also as balanced as you'll get on global warming, although at the end of the day they lean more left than right.

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  budget basics

  Facts

  Lawmakers and pundits love to debate ideas, policies and principles (we're not criticizing - we do too), but in the end of the day governing often comes down to priorities - that is, how much money to fork over for the principles you believe in (unless, of course, you believe in the principle of small government).

  Here's some basic information on where our priorities lie - how much we spend, what we are spending it on and where we're getting it from.

  For a primer on how the budget gets passed, see the budget process. For iinfo on the 2008 budget currently on Congress' plate, see our budget tracker.

  Budget basics

  How much we spend (at the federal level)

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  deficits & debt

  Facts

  We hear about the deficit all the time - but how bad is it and what, for that matter, is a deficit? Some basics...

  Definitions

  Deficit – the deficit is how much more the federal government spends in a given year than it raises in revenue (through taxes, mostly) (Note: we're just talking about the budget deficit here; for info on the trade deficit, see our trade page)

  Surplus – a surplus is how much more the federal government raises in a given year than it spends (the opposite of a deficit – happens rarely)

  Debt – the total accumulation of past deficits – or, how much we owe. There are two kinds of debt that people talk about:

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  the budget process

  A Joe Primer

  Congress spends about half of its time and energy each year on the painstaking ritual of passing a budget, a process that can take over a year. With all its complexities and politics, it's no wonder most Americans pay no attention. Yet at the same time, the budget is where most choices about our national priorities are made; since there's never enough of the pie to fully fund all federal programs, Congress has to choose which programs get the thick slices and which are left with the crumbs.

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  line item veto

  Issue in Brief

  What’s up?

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  issue guide: National Debt

  The Skinny

  see also background & facts, pro & con, links

  What's up

  Debt. We’re deep in it – and still digging. Some economists warn that our national debt is growing to dangerous levels and could end up hurting our economy in the short- and long-term. Others caution there’s no need for alarm; the debt is manageable and is even a necessary byproduct of policies designed to boost the economy in sluggish times.

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  budget reform

  Issue in Brief

  With the federal government running deficits for four years in a row, fiscal conservatives on the left and right occasionally push for stricter rules and checks to keep spending under control.

  While 2006's Congress was gunning for a line-item veto and talked about setting up sunset rules and an efficiency panel, the 2007 Congress is on its way to pass pay/go rules. More on what all those reforms are about:

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  • deficits & debt |
  • waste & pork

  
  

  budget 2008

  A Joe Tracker

  Passing a budget is a year long event. (For an overview of the tortuously tedious process, see our budget process page.) Here we'll keep track of the details and debates on the budget as it trudges its way through the chambers of Capitol Hill...

  In brief

  President Bush kicked off the process way back in February, unveiling his recommendations for spending in '08 - but those recommendations didn't hold up much when the democratic Congress passed its budget resolution in May. With their budget blueprint in hand, the House spent the summer knocking out the details of its twelve spending bills; the Senate got a much later start and only managed to get five in the bag by October 1, when FY 2008 began. Congress passed a couple of "continuing resolutions" to keep the government rolling at '07 spending level before they passed a final bill in December.

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