Writing · topic · 36 articles

Government operations

Congress, inspectors general, rulemaking, federal spending and procurement, the civil service, and foreign aid.

• Guaranteed Empty: The Bed Floor in ICE’s Own Arithmetic

  2026-07-11

  Guaranteed-minimum contracts commit the government to paying for 45,621 detention beds whether or not anyone is in them. In ICE’s own file, 8,813 of those beds sat paid-for and empty at the 20 facilities running more than ten percent under their guarantee — while 36 facilities ran more than ten percent over. Two columns of the public file and a minus sign: the take-or-pay floor covering 76 percent of the detained population.

  Justice and immigration · Government operations · Transparency and open data

• No Result on Record: The Inspection Blanks in ICE’s Own File

  2026-07-11

  Of 203 facilities in ICE’s own detention file, 61 carry no inspection result on record — 9,186 people held on an average day at facilities whose rating column is blank, 38 of them under the US Marshals Service umbrella. The blanks, the 21 missing inspection dates, the 73.1% of the population with no recorded threat level, and the 5 facilities that were inspected, failed, and still hold people.

  Justice and immigration · Government operations · Transparency and open data

• The Influence Pipeline: Campaign Money, Lobbying, and Federal Contracts

  2026-06-23

  Three public datasets describe how organizations try to shape government and what they receive: FEC campaign finance (who gives), lobbying disclosures (who lobbies), and USAspending (who wins contracts). Joined on organization + parent name — there is no shared identifier — with the honest correlation-not-causation caveat.

  Money in politics · Government operations · Transparency and open data · Engineering and infrastructure

• Following a Nonprofit Through Federal Data: Status, Finances, and the Money In

  2026-06-23

  A tax-exempt organization’s full federal footprint — its IRS exemption ruling, its self-reported Form 990 finances and grants made, and the USAspending grants, contracts, and subawards flowing to it — joined on the EIN, the universal nonprofit key. The money-in vs money-out distinction and the gotchas that break the join.

  Transparency and open data · Government operations · Engineering and infrastructure

• How a Federal Rule Is Made: Tracing the Rulemaking Lifecycle Across Federal Data

  2026-06-21

  A guide to tracing a federal regulation end to end — from the public law that authorizes it, through the proposed and final rules in the Federal Register, to the public-comment docket on Regulations.gov — by threading the RIN, the docket ID, and the Federal Register document number across three connected datasets.

  Government operations · Engineering and infrastructure

• Following the Money: Joining Federal Campaign Finance, Lobbying, and Spending Data

  2026-06-21

  The hardest and most valuable move in federal data analysis is following one company across four disconnected systems — the political money it gives, the lobbying it pays for, the contracts it wins, and the fraud cases brought against it. None of them share a key, so the work is entity resolution: normalizing names, mapping subsidiaries to parents, and living with fuzzy matches.

  Engineering and infrastructure · Money in politics · Government operations

• NASA OIG Reports: The Federal Record of Auditing the Space Program

  2026-06-21

  The NASA Office of Inspector General is the independent watchdog that audits the cost and schedule of the Space Launch System, Orion, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Commercial Crew contracts with SpaceX and Boeing — and reports the overruns. Roughly 850 audit and investigative reports trace how NASA spends its ~$25 billion budget, which programs run over, and what the OIG recommends to fix it.

  Government operations · Federal data

• Oversight.gov: The Federal Record of Every Inspector General Report in One Place

  2026-06-21

  Oversight.gov is the single searchable library of federal Inspector General work, run by CIGIE to aggregate the audits, inspections, and investigations that some seventy-odd OIGs publish separately. This guide covers the Inspector General Act, CIGIE and the PRAC, recurring findings and open recommendations, how the catalog joins to spending and agency data, a worked Oversight.gov API walkthrough, and the caveats.

  Government operations · Transparency and open data · Federal data

• VA Inspector General Reports: The Federal Record of Oversight at Veterans Affairs

  2026-06-21

  The VA Office of Inspector General is the independent watchdog over the second-largest federal department — the nation’s largest integrated health system, the benefits administration, and the cemeteries. Roughly 4,280 reports, keyed to the facility or program reviewed, span healthcare inspections, benefits audits, construction reviews, and criminal investigations — the documentary trail behind the Phoenix wait-time scandal and the accountability that followed.

  Health and medicine · Government operations · Federal data

• Federal Lobbying Disclosures: The Public Record of Who Is Paid to Influence Washington

  2026-06-21

  The Lobbying Disclosure Act forces every paid lobbyist to file the client, the issues, the agencies contacted, and the money — a quarterly public ledger of the influence industry. This guide walks the LD-2 and LD-203 filings, the standardized issue-area codes, the Senate and House disclosure systems, and how the data joins to the campaign-finance and foreign-agent records.

  Money in politics · Government operations · Federal data

• DOJ Inspector General Reports: The Federal Record of Watching the Watchmen

  2026-06-21

  The Department of Justice has its own independent watchdog — an inspector general who audits, inspects, and investigates the FBI, DEA, ATF, the Bureau of Prisons, and the rest of the department, then publishes the findings. This guide covers what the roughly 3,000 published OIG reports are, the Inspector General Act of 1978 that created the office, the audit-evaluation-investigation product lines, the landmark FBI and FISA reviews, how recommendations are tracked, where the data lives on oig.justice.gov and oversight.gov, a worked Python walkthrough, and the caveats.

  Justice and immigration · Government operations · Federal data

• FEMA Hazard Mitigation: The Federal Record of Spending to Prevent the Next Disaster

  2026-06-21

  FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants pay to reduce disaster risk before and after the storm — the preventive complement to the rebuild-after Public Assistance program — and OpenFEMA publishes roughly 56,000 funded mitigation projects. A field-level guide to HMGP, FMA, PDM, and BRIC; buyouts, elevations, safe rooms, and mitigation plans; the “$6 saved per $1 spent” finding and the equity debate over benefit-cost scoring; and a Python workflow that sums federal share by program, state, and project type.

  Environment and energy · Government operations · Federal data

• GovInfo Congressional Hearings: The Federal Record of What Witnesses Tell Congress

  2026-06-21

  Congressional hearings are the principal way House and Senate committees gather information, and the published transcripts are the official record of that testimony. This guide covers the GovInfo CHRG collection — roughly 46,000 hearing transcripts keyed by package ID and committee — the five hearing types, the give-and-take that the transcripts preserve, how hearings feed the bills, votes, and laws that follow, a worked GovInfo API walkthrough, and the caveats of a corpus assembled from fifty-odd committees.

  Government operations · Federal data

• FEMA Public Assistance: The Federal Record of How Disaster Recovery Money Is Spent

  2026-06-21

  The Public Assistance program is the federal government’s largest disaster-recovery grant — the money that rebuilds roads, schools, hospitals, and water systems after a presidential disaster declaration. OpenFEMA publishes roughly 195,000 funded-project summaries showing what was rebuilt and at what cost; this guide explains the Stafford Act frame, the work categories, the cost-share, and how to join the spending to the declarations.

  Environment and energy · Government operations · Federal data

• NSF Awards: The Federal Record of Who Gets US Science Funding

  2026-06-21

  The National Science Foundation funds roughly a quarter of all federally supported basic research at US colleges and universities, and every grant it makes leaves a public record — the award number, the institution, the principal investigator, the program and directorate, the title and abstract, and the obligated dollars. This guide covers the merit-review system behind the awards, the directorate structure, the searchable abstract corpus, and a Python workflow against the open NSF Awards API.

  Research and education · Government operations · Federal data

• US Public Laws: The Federal Record of Every Law Congress Has Enacted

  2026-06-21

  Every bill that clears both chambers and the President’s desk becomes a numbered public law — the Americans with Disabilities Act, HIPAA, Dodd-Frank, the Affordable Care Act, the CARES Act. GPO publishes the chronological record through GovInfo, and our public_laws table holds the several thousand of them enacted from the 101st Congress forward. A field-level guide to public-law numbering, the slip-law to Statutes-at-Large to US Code pipeline, and a worked GovInfo API walkthrough.

  Government operations · Federal data

• GAO Reports: The Federal Database Behind Congress’s Watchdog

  2026-06-21

  The Government Accountability Office is the nonpartisan audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of Congress — the congressional watchdog. This guide covers what the GAO reports dataset is, how the office works, the High-Risk List and the duplication report, recommendation tracking and reported financial benefits, bid-protest decisions, how the reports table joins to the spending and legislative records, a worked Python walkthrough against gao.gov, and the caveats every analyst must hold.

  Government operations · Federal data

• CRS Reports: The Federal Database Behind Congress’s Own Nonpartisan Research

  2026-06-21

  For most of its history the Congressional Research Service wrote authoritative, nonpartisan analysis for members of Congress that the public was not allowed to read — until a 2018 appropriations law forced the reports into the open. This is a guide to the ~23,200-report database that resulted: what CRS is and why it sits inside the Library of Congress, the anatomy of a product number and its revisions, how the reports earn their reputation as the most citable secondary source on US federal policy, a worked Python walkthrough of the EveryCRSReport bulk index, and the caveats of working with a corpus that was never designed to be a dataset.

  Government operations · Federal data

• USASpending Contracts: The Federal Record of Every Dollar the Government Buys

  2026-06-21

  USASpending.gov is the government’s official open-data record of how it spends money, and its contracts half — sourced from FPDS-NG — is the authoritative governmentwide procurement file: roughly 100 million award and transaction records carrying the agency, the recipient UEI, the obligated dollars, the NAICS and PSC codes, and the competition status of every federal contract action. This guide covers the DATA Act mandate, the prime-award schema, competition and set-aside fields, the UEI transition, joins to subawards and the exclusions list, and a worked USASpending API walkthrough.

  Government operations · Federal data

• Trading on the inside: using STOCK Act filings to track congressional stock transactions

  2026-06-07

  The STOCK Act requires members of Congress to report stock trades within 45 days. The House Clerk publishes scanned PDFs — not structured data. Here is how Quiver Quantitative, Capitol Trades, and journalists have structured this data, and what the disclosures reveal about trading patterns around legislation and committee assignments.

  Federal data · Government operations · Transparency and open data

• SAM Exclusions and Debarments: The Federal List of Who Cannot Win Government Contracts

  2026-06-01

  There is a single federal list that can end a company. When a firm or person is placed on the SAM.gov exclusions list, they are barred across the entire US government from winning federal contracts and most grants, loans, and benefits — roughly 64,400 active exclusion records, each naming the excluded party, why, by whom, and for how long.

  Government operations · Federal data

• Before it disappeared: archiving $1.5 trillion in USAID foreign assistance data

  2026-05-30

  foreignassistance.gov went dark on January 31, 2025. What the dataset contained, how it was archived, what the DOGE cuts actually targeted, and where to access it now.

  Federal data · Government operations · Transparency and open data

• USASpending Subawards: The Federal Database Behind Sub-Grant and Sub-Contract Flow Tracking

  2026-05-25

  USASpending.gov subaward data tracks the flow of federal money beyond the prime awardee — the sub-grants flowing from universities and state agencies to community organizations, and the sub-contracts from prime defense contractors to thousands of small suppliers, covering $500 billion+ in annual pass-through federal funding.

  Government operations · Transparency and open data · Federal data

• USAID Foreign Assistance Data: Tracing $50 Billion in Annual US Development Spending

  2026-05-24

  The United States spends more than $50 billion per year on foreign assistance — aid, development programs, security cooperation, and humanitarian response across 200 countries administered by a dozen federal agencies, all publicly disclosed on ForeignAssistance.gov with country-level, sector-level, and implementing-partner-level detail.

  Government operations · Federal data

• Congressional Voting Records: The Federal Database Behind Every House and Senate Roll Call Vote

  2026-05-24

  Congressional roll call vote data — maintained through VoteView, Congress.gov, and GovInfo — covers every recorded vote in the House and Senate dating back to the First Congress in 1789, enabling researchers to calculate legislator ideology scores, track party loyalty, analyze bipartisan coalitions, and build comprehensive political science datasets covering 250 years of American legislative history.

  Government operations · Federal data

• Grants.gov: The Federal Database Behind $500 Billion in Annual Federal Grant Opportunities

  2026-05-24

  Grants.gov is the federal government unified portal for grant opportunities — listing every competitive federal grant, cooperative agreement, and other financial assistance opportunity from 26 grant-making agencies, covering $500 billion+ in annual awards to universities, state and local governments, nonprofits, and businesses across every federal program area.

  Government operations · Research and education · Transparency and open data · Federal data

• Regulations.gov: The Federal Database Behind 25 Million Public Comments on US Rulemaking

  2026-05-24

  Regulations.gov is the federal government unified rulemaking portal — hosting dockets for every significant federal regulation from 170+ agencies, 25 million public comments, and supporting documents including economic analyses and scientific studies, making it the most comprehensive public record of how federal rules are made and who influences them.

  Government operations · Federal data

• GAO Reports Database: The Congressional Watchdog Behind 900 Annual Federal Audits

  2026-05-24

  The Government Accountability Office publishes 900+ reports, testimonies, and correspondence per year — audits, investigations, and evaluations of federal programs across every agency and department.

  Government operations · Federal data

• SAM.gov Exclusions: The Federal Database Behind Government Contractor Debarments

  2026-05-24

  The System for Award Management exclusions database lists every individual and entity currently barred from receiving federal contracts, grants, and other financial assistance — covering debarments, suspensions, proposed debarments, and voluntary exclusions across all federal agencies.

  Government operations · Federal data

• Treasury Daily Treasury Statement: The Federal Database Behind the US Government's Daily Cash Position

  2026-05-24

  The Daily Treasury Statement reports the federal government's cash position every business day — receipts, outlays, and the operating cash balance — and is the most granular real-time fiscal data available from the US government.

  Finance and markets · Government operations · Federal data

• OPM FedScope: The Federal Database Behind 2.1 Million US Government Workers

  2026-05-24

  OPM CPDF/FedScope: ~2.1-2.3M federal civilian employees quarterly. Largest: DOD ~750k, VA ~400k, DHS ~250k. GS pay: GS-1 Step 1 $22,270/yr to GS-15 Step 10 $163,964 base + 34 locality areas (DC +33.26%); SES ~9,000 positions $155k-$235k (2024). FedScope dimensions: agency, occupation series, location, pay plan, grade, education, age, race, gender, veterans status (27% federal vs 6% private). FERS: 1.1%/yr x high-3 x years + TSP 5% match + Social Security; CSRS pre-1984. DOGE 2025: fork-in-the-road email ~75k acceptances; USAID ~10k terminated; HHS ~20k; DOE ~1,500; EPA ~1,500; union lawsuits. Data: fedscope.opm.gov cube; opm.gov bulk CSV; no public REST API. Python FedScope CSV analysis by agency grade distribution and SES density.

  Government operations · Federal data

• USAID Foreign Aid Data: The Federal Database Behind $40 Billion in Annual US Development Assistance

  2026-05-24

  USAID (United States Agency for International Development) manages ~$40B in annual foreign assistance across 100+ countries. ForeignAssistance.gov (IATI) publishes whole-of-government aid data by agency, country, sector, and implementing partner. Award types: contracts (for-profit implementers like Chemonics ~$1-2B/yr, DAI, AECOM), grants (INGOs: Save the Children, CARE, IRC, World Vision), cooperative agreements, interagency agreements. PEPFAR: $110B+ since 2003, 20M+ people on ARVs, Country Operational Plans at pepfar.gov. DATA Act: USAID contracts on USASpending.gov; IATI XML at iatiregistry.org. Top recipients FY2022: Ukraine (surged post-invasion), Ethiopia, DR Congo, Nigeria, Jordan, South Africa (PEPFAR). Sub-Saharan Africa ~35%, Near East ~20% of obligations. ForeignAssistance.gov API at /api/v1/resources.json. OpenAid, AidData, D-Portal for secondary access. Here is award mechanisms, PEPFAR data structure, implementing partner concentration, geographic patterns, IATI standard, and a Python ForeignAssistance.gov analysis by country and sector.

  Government operations · Federal data

• CRS Reports: The Congressional Research Service Database Behind US Policy Analysis

  2026-05-24

  The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is the nonpartisan policy and legal research arm of Congress within the Library of Congress, established 1914. 700 analysts across 7 divisions produce six product types: Reports (comprehensive analyses), Insights (2-4 page current issue), In Focus (2-page overviews), Legal Sidebars, Report Updates, and Testimonies. 25+ policy areas including agriculture, appropriations, budget, energy, environment, foreign affairs, health, homeland security, immigration, technology, labor, law, national defense, and transportation. The 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act first mandated public release; crsreports.congress.gov is the official portal with 9,000+ available reports. Historically products were available only to members of Congress -- the 2012 Coburn-blocked report on top marginal tax rates and economic growth (finding no correlation) galvanized the public access movement. EveryCRSReport.com (Federation of American Scientists + Demand Progress) provides bulk access including pre-2018 reports via API at everycrsreport.com/reports.json; each report has id, title, topics array, date, and versions list. CRS differs from GAO (auditing/program evaluation) and CBO (budget scoring only). Here is CRS product type mechanics, the public access mandate, EveryCRSReport.com API structure, and a Python analysis of publication frequency and update patterns by policy area.

  Government operations · Federal data

• USASpending.gov: The Federal Spending Database Behind $6 Trillion in Annual Contracts, Grants, and Loans

  2026-05-24

  USASpending.gov tracks ~$6T in annual federal spending via FFATA 2006 and DATA Act 2014. Contracts (~$700B from FPDS-NG): DoD ~$412B, Lockheed Martin ~$73B, RTX ~$42B, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop. Grants (~$800B): NIH $40B, NSF $9B. API at api.usaspending.gov: /search/spending_by_award, /bulk_download. FPDS fields: UEI, CAGE, PSC, NAICS, contract type, competition type, set-aside (8(a)/HUBZone/SDVOSB/WOSB). FSRS subaward reporting >$30k. Data Act financial linkage: appropriation → obligation → outlay. Here is defense contract patterns, small business set-asides, DATA Act mechanics, and a Python DoD top-contractor analysis.

  Government operations · Federal data

• Federal Register: The Official Rulemaking Journal Behind 90,000 Pages of Annual US Regulatory Activity

  2026-05-24

  The Federal Register is the official daily journal of the US federal government, published since 1936, containing proposed rules (NPRMs), final rules, presidential documents, and notices — ~85,000-95,000 pages/year. APA requires notice-and-comment: NPRM → 30-90 day comment period → final rule with 30-day delay. OIRA reviews significant/major rules (>$100M impact) under EO 12866. Unified Regulatory Agenda tracks all agency rules in the pipeline. Congressional Review Act allows Congress to overturn recent major rules. Here is the CFR 50-title structure, Regulations.gov docket API, Federal Register API at federalregister.gov/api/v1/, Loper Bright 2024 overruling of Chevron, and a Python EPA NPRM analysis.

  Government operations · Federal data

• Treasury Daily Treasury Statement: The Federal Cash Flow Data Published Every Business Day

  2026-05-24

  The DTS is published each federal business day at 4 PM ET by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, reporting the prior day's cash receipts, outlays, and borrowing. Tables cover TGA balance at Federal Reserve Banks, public debt outstanding, deposits and withdrawals by source category, operating cash balances, and federal agency deposits. The fiscal year deficit is the running sum of daily net outflows. Here is DTS Table I-VII structure, TGA balance mechanics, debt ceiling X-date tracking, Fiscal Data API access, and a Python script to chart daily outflows by category.

  Finance and markets · Government operations · Federal data

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