Taking apart the federal budget

Probably you have heard that our nation has a big national debt. Yes, we do. If you click on this link, you will see how much money we owe.

The debt is the total of all the money the governnment owes because of all the years in which our government had a deficit - we spent more than was collected in taxes.

Why do we do this? basically because Americans demand a lot from the government but don't want to pay more taxes. There are only two ways to reduce budget deficits, reduce spending or raise taxes. Neither are popular.

So, now that the economy is having lots of trouble and people are hurting, it makes it especially hard to cut government programs or raise taxes.

SO, let's look at the budget that Barack Obama has proposed to Congress for 2011. Look at the following links, and see what you can learn about our federal budget.

First an NBC news report on Obama's budget announcement:

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What is in the new federal budget proposed by the Obama Administration?

Taking apart the federal budget (washingtonpost.com)

Will it pass? Congress has to pass the budget each year, and it is a complicated process. Here is an interactive look at the budget process also from the Washington Post.

The New York Times has another way of looking at this in the following interactive graph. It give more info about what each category is all about.