Other Sites for Tracking Congress & Legislation
See also the other resources about government spending
- GovTrack This link opens in a new window"has information on all bills going back to 1993 and follows the status of current pending legislation as it goes through the law-making process."
- LegiStorm This link opens in a new window"helps bring transparency to the U.S. Congress by disseminating public documents and non-partisan information over the web"
- OpenCongress This link opens in a new window"OpenCongress allows anyone to follow legislation in Congress, from bill introduction to floor vote. Learn more about issues you care about and connect with others who share similar views."
- Taxpayers for Common Sense"an independent and non-partisan voice for taxpayers working to increase transparency and expose and eliminate wasteful and corrupt subsidies, earmarks, and corporate welfare"
- WashingtonWatch"starts with government predictions about the costs or savings from proposed changes to government spending, taxation, and regulation. We take these predictions and calculate their “net present value.” That is the value today of changes to future spending, taxes, or regulation."
- Subsidyscope (Pew Charitable Trusts) (Archived 2012 Project) This link opens in a new window"Subsidyscope presented data and analysis on federal spending and subsidies across nine broad economic sectors, including agriculture; education; energy; health; housing; national defense; natural resources and environment; science, space, and technology; and transportation. Subsidyscope made this information more accessible to policy makers and the public by aggregating information from multiple government data sources, creating searchable data sets, and providing sector-specific analyses."
- Public Disclosure (U.S. Senate) This link opens in a new window- United States Senate Financial Disclosures (eFD)
- Senate Gift Rule Database
- Lobbying Disclosure Act Databases
- Post Employment Lobbying Restrictions - MapLight -- revealing money's influence on politics This link opens in a new window"a nonpartisan research organization that reveals money’s influence on politics in the U.S. Congress and in the California and Wisconsin state legislatures. We provide journalists and citizens with transparency tools that connect data on campaign contributions, politicians, legislative votes, industries, companies, and more to show patterns of influence never before possible to see. These tools allow users to gain unique insights into how campaign contributions affect policy so they can draw their own conclusions about how money influences our political system."
- Legislative Explorer (1973+) This link opens in a new window- "Compare the bills and resolutions introduced by Senators and Representatives and follow their progress from the beginning to the end of a two year Congress."
- "Filter by topic, type of legislation, chamber, party, member, or even search for a specific bill."
USASpending.gov -- Government Spending at Your Fingertips
- USASpending.gov"The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Transparency Act) requires a single searchable website, accessible by the public for free that includes for each Federal award:
1.The name of the entity receiving the award;
2.The amount of the award;
3.Information on the award including transaction type, funding agency, etc;
4.The location of the entity receiving the award;
5.A unique identifier of the entity receiving the award."
Earmarks
- Earmarks Database (Office of Management & Budget)"Earmarks are funds provided by the Congress for projects, programs, or grants where the purported congressional direction (whether in statutory text, report language, or other communication) circumvents otherwise applicable merit-based or competitive allocation processes, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the executive branch to manage its statutory and constitutional responsibilities pertaining to the funds allocation process."
U.S. Budget
- Congressional Budget Office"CBO's mandate is to provide the Congress with:
- Objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on the wide array of programs covered by the federal budget and
- The information and estimates required for the Congressional budget process."