Sorting out the Budget Proposals

Interactive graphics at the Washington Post on the different budget proposals.

Party ID and Spending priorities

The Monkey Cage Blog posted this graph on Party ID & Spending Priorities. Red are Republican responses, blue are Democratic responses.

Interactive Obama Budget

NYTimes interactive of President Obama's proposed budget.

Visualizing Obama's budget cuts

Hat tip to Morgan Dubiel on the AP Gov listserve for the lead to this video.

Federal Budget Challenge

Budget game I haven't seen before.

Death and Taxes graphic

WallStats has a great image/poster on the federal budget.

Visualizing the Stimulus Package

With the stiumulus package clocking in at an even $825 billion, these visuals from PageTutor (using the free Google Sketchup tool) are pretty staggering. The graphic above is only one billion; imagine this duplicated 825 times!

Political Cartoons in the Classroom

I often run out of time in class to get a chance to discuss current events going on, and political cartoons are a great way to get kids talking... and introduce a little levity, which is never a bad thing. Herblock's History has some great historical political cartoons, and Time's Cartoons of the Week (or the NYT's Upfront) is a great place to start for some fresh material.

To help the kids unpack all the cues and messages in political cartoons, check out the National Archives great cartoon analysis worksheet.

Budget Game
One of the more complicated concepts we teach is the budget. Here is a way to help the kids understand it and learn at the same time. It is up to date enough to include Obama's platform and the kids have to include 2/3s of it in their budget.