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political science

Visualizing the Budget of the United States

Each year, the President of the United States follows the State of the Union Address with the budget proposal. But what does the US budget look like?

The New York Times created a visualization of the 2012 budget that breaks down the spending by size and color. The larger the rectangle, the more money spent. Green symbolizes an increase in that budget area, and red shows a budget cut.

A similar visualization can be found for the 2014 budget at The Washington Post. Again, size is used to represent the amount spent, but their visualization also includes revenue information. The Washington Post also includes a breakdown of mandatory vs. discretionary spending.

Here at DASIL, we have created a visualization tracking budget spending over time, including estimates until 2019, using data from The White House. You can use our tool to compare outlays for various government agencies.
For example, let’s examine spending on the Department of Education and the Department of Homeland Security:Outlays by Agency: Department of Homeland Security vs. Department of Education

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