Trade-Offs: Your Money, Your Choices

Our federal budget represents a series of choices. Those choices should reflect our priorities as a nation. But do they?
Our interactive tool helps you explore and answer that question.

    [+] About Our Numbers

    A Note About Our Numbers

    We generate trade-offs using enacted budget numbers for fiscal year 2015 as published by the White House Office of Management and Budget and costs published by various federal agencies. The localized numbers are calculated using our best approximation of individual income taxes paid by geographic area. These numbers are estimates only. For a full explanation of our sources and methodology, see the notes and sources page.

    Why are these numbers different from the numbers in our Cost of National Security counters?

    The numbers in Trade-Offs are projected total costs for a federal program through the end of the specified fiscal year. The numbers in the Cost of National Security counters are changing in real time to show how much has been spent on a program to date since the beginning of the fiscal year, unless otherwise specified.

    Last Updated: 6/4/2015
    Updated program and trade-off numbers for FY2015.