The Budget Brigade here at OMB Watch clearly loves the budget. We also love pretty visualizations. Sadly, there’s a distinct lack of pretty budget visualizations out there. Lucky for us, into this void has stepped the Data Viz Challenge, which this week announced its winner.

In approving (235-193) House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan's (R-WI) proposed budget resolution. The spending blueprint, if enacted, would turn Medicare into a voucher program and drastically cut Medicaid funding as a means to cutting income tax rates for upper-income households (from 35 percent to 25 percent). Although the plan has no chance of becoming law, it does illustrate the Republican-controlled House's priorities - namely tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for low-income programs and seniors.

The continuing resolution agreement to fund the government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which was reached by President Obama, Senate Democrats, and House Republicans, is extremely disappointing. At a time when unemployment is close to nine percent, 23 million Americans are either underemployed or unemployed, and economic growth sputters, policymakers have decided that the most pressing problem facing the nation is the budget deficit. Rather than making adjustments where the pain will be felt the least, their solution is to cut nutrition, housing, and education spending, let tax cheats off the hook, and spend more money on an already bloated defense budget.

The details of the compromise continuing resolution (CR) agreed to late last Friday, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown, have been released. While more analysis is forthcoming, at this point we can say that the CR doesn't look good for e-government.