Assessment of what governments spend, tax and regulate, measured against the objectives stated when each measure was introduced. Sources include budget offices, program evaluations and comparable schemes abroad. For officials, evaluators and analysts who need the counterfactual as well as the reported outcome.
Every major U.S. regulation travels the same legal assembly line set out in the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, and each station on that line is public record.
Valentina Sokolov · June 10, 2026
The 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act moved influence out of the shadows with quarterly reports — and its foreign-agent sibling reaches conduct the LDA does not touch.
Valentina Sokolov · May 30, 2026
CBO scores legislation for cost, forecasts the economy, and tells Congress things it does not want to hear — by statute, without policy recommendations.
Valentina Sokolov · May 26, 2026
The statutory debt limit caps how much the Treasury may borrow to pay bills Congress has already ordered — and every standoff ends the same way, at the X-date or before it.
Henrik Larsen · April 18, 2026
Impoundment is a president's refusal to spend money Congress appropriated — banned in general by a 1974 law whose meaning is back at the center of budget fights.
Valentina Sokolov · April 5, 2026