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Welcome to Heritage's Budget Information Site, which provides users a list of every dollar the federal government spends in a year, from entitlements and discretionary spending to paying interest on the debt. The numbers are broken down by department and agency and should help taxpayers better understand government spending.
There are two primary uses for this application: searching the budget and creating your own budget. Using Office of Management and Budget and Congressional Budget Office data broken down by department, the site provides a comprehensive overview of the federal budget. You can see budget information on each department, sub-agency, and key program. By using the new sorting capability, users can see what budget programs had the biggest and smallest budget increases, and what programs had the biggest and smallest allocations from 1998 to 2001. The estimated budget allocations for 2002 are also shown. Find Budget Savings: A keyword-driven search will display Heritage budget recommendations for individual programs. Create Your Own Budget: Customize the budget data and save your changes for future viewing. You can change data for the total federal budget, the subcommittees, and the departments and programs under the subcommittees by clicking on the word "Change" under each budget number. A pop-up will appear that allows you to change the budget number either by percent or level increase. You can also choose to accept all Heritage budget recommendations. The "Compute Your Own Budget" defaults to FY2002 budget less any savings if you accept the Heritage recommendations. Any change within the budget will be reflected in the total federal budget. Changes for the total federal budget and for the subcommittees are automatically propagated to the underlying departments and programs. Once you revise the number, the budget item will change to red if it is an increase, black if there is no change, and blue if it is a budget decrease. You can track any changes you made to the federal budget by clicking on "View Change Log" button. Save the changes you have made by clicking on the "Save My Changes" button. You will be given a tracking number that will allow you to retrieve the saved information within 60 days of using the application. View budgetary changes over the past few years: Using Office of Management and Budget data broken down by department, the site provides a comprehensive overview of the federal budget for 1998 to 2002. You can see budget information on each department, sub-agency, and key program. By using the new sorting capability, users can see what budget programs had the biggest and smallest budget increases, in both aggregate dollars and the biggest percentage changes, and what programs had the biggest and smallest allocations from 1998 to 2001. The estimated budget allocations for 2002 are also shown. Tell us what you think of this site. Send your comments and feedback to budgetcalculator@heritage.org. |
