Build a Better Budget

National Priorities Project (NPP) has released the perfect tool for understanding and influencing the high-stakes Lame Duck Congress: Build a Better Budget. Build a Better Budget lets players select federal spending and revenue choices that reflect their own priorities for our nation. The game is based on real-world budget proposals that are central to the current debate in Washington.

Top five features of Build a Better Budget:

• Compares President Obama’s FY2013 budget proposal, the House budget created by Congressman Paul Ryan, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget;
• Provides a robust conduit for tool users to take action by sharing their budget priorities with Congress, their colleagues, and their friends;
• Projects the potential impact of sequestration – the across-the-board spending cuts set to take place in January 2013;
• Projects the impact of extending the Bush-era tax cuts, which are set to expire in December, as well as other proposed changes to the tax code;
• Looks at the long-term impact of decisions Congress may make on the federal deficit, Pentagon spending, job creation, and Medicare.

“Congress will shortly have to make tough decisions on wide range of important issues,” said NPP Senior Research Analyst, Chris Hellman. “Some will have an immediate impact. Others won’t become apparent for years. But depending on the choices we make, our nation could look very different in the future.”


Build a Better Budget is part of a suite of Fiscal Cliff materials being released this week by NPP. National Priorities Project is a non-profit, non-partisan federal budget research organization. NPP’s mission is to make complex federal budget information transparent and accessible so people can prioritize and influence how their tax dollars are spent. Check out “Build a Better Budget” at: http://bit.ly/BuildaBetterBudget