What Do Budget Number Really Mean?

Center for Economic Policy Research has released a new online calculator (http://www.cepr.net/calculators/bc/cbc.html) that they hope will make it easier for reporters, policymakers, and others to quickly place budget numbers in context. The results are often quite revealing.
We know that Americans believe that programs like welfare and foreign aid represent a much larger percentage of the budget than is actually the case. Better awareness of the facts can only help many of the programs we care about, which are typically quite small in relative terms, despite their large impact.

The calculator also compares budget numbers to total defense spending, graphically showing how much more is spent on the military than on the other roles of government. For example, the President requested $3.26 billion for “emergency preparedness and response” for fiscal year 2006. That is equal to 0.1 percent of the unified budget and 0.64 percent of defense spending per capita. The additional $62.3 billion appropriated by Congress for Katrina is 2.4 percent of the unified budget and 12.3 percent of defense spending per capita in 2006.

The President’s request for Head Start in 2006 was $6.9 billion. That is just 0.3 percent of the unified budget and 1.36 percent of defense spending per capita.

For more information, please contact,

Patrick McElwee
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Domestic Policy Analyst
tel: 202-293-5380, x110
mcelwee@cepr.net
fax: 202-588-1356
1611 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20009
www.cepr.net