The $3.67 trillion the government is planning to spend in fiscal year 2013 are your tax dollars. The federal budget is as much about spending as it is about raising revenue, and individuals like you fund the federal government through income taxes and payroll taxes. That means we’re all stakeholders in how that money is spent from the federal level to the states, into counties and right into our own towns.

We have the power to change our government, and the course of history. But we can’t do it without first understanding a little bit about what’s going on.

Join the Institute for Policy Studies, Teaching for Change Bookstore, Busboys and Poets, and the National Priorities Project (NPP) for a dynamic multimedia presentation and exchange on a new book, A People’s Guide to the Federal Budget that deconstructs the complexities of the budgeting process. Discussed will also be how citizens can play a role in influencing budget priorities in the people’s interests. Led by NPP Executive Director Jo Comerford, this forum will be suitable and interesting to ages from high school on up. Bring your students! Bring your teachers! As stakeholders, it is our right and our obligation to see that our tax dollars are spent in ways that reflect our priorities.

“A People’s Guide to the Federal Budget is our way in,”
– New York Times bestselling author Barbara Ehrenreich.

“Nothing will change in Washington unless the American people demand it. A People’s Guide to the Federal Budget empowers Americans by explaining the inside-Washington game and offering tools to hold lawmakers accountable.”
– Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration and best-selling author of Aftershock and The Work of Nations