New Interactive Budget Database Demystifies Threat Reduction Budgets

The U.S. government budget process is notoriously opaque and confusing – and nowhere more so than when it comes to spending for defense and threat prevention. Efforts to track spending are time-consuming and often frustrating as budgets and policy goals cross an array of departments, agencies, programs and timelines. This complex web makes it almost impossible to determine how much is spent and on what, never mind to evaluate how taxpayer dollars are spent for threat reduction.

NTI's new Securing the Bomb Interactive Budget Database helps demystify U.S. government spending to reduce nuclear, biological and chemical threats outside the United States. The easy-to-use tool allows users to view the entire threat reduction budget from 1992 to the present or search the budget by program, policy goal or government agency across a custom date range.

Users can navigate the system in just three easy steps:

• First, choose whether you would like to search for the budget line item for a specific program, for an entire department's threat reduction budget, or for a broad policy goal, which may cut across departments.
• Second, select the specific program (i.e. Global Threat Reduction Initiative, chemical weapons destruction, or Second Line of Defense), select the department (State, Defense and Energy), or select the policy goal (i.e. interdicting nuclear smuggling or securing warheads and materials).
• Third, select the year or date range, from 1992 to the present.

The result is a clear numerical value for your budget query.

Originally developed more than a decade ago with Harvard's Project on Managing the Atom as part of the Securing the Bomb series, this updated version of the budget database simplifies research with a host of new user-friendly features and reflects the most current numbers.

For questions or more information on the Securing the Bomb budget tool, please e-mail [email protected].