Follow the Money
Bills & Spending
We read the actual text of a bill and pull out its largest spending line-items — what it funds, and where the money goes. Each figure is quoted verbatim and cited to the exact section, so you can check it yourself. This is the ledger that a member’s votes link to. Coverage is gated on that hand verification, not on politics: a law that clears the entry test joins as soon as its extraction survives the checks, and until then its absence is a coverage gap this page owns rather than hides.
How to read these
Not every dollar in a bill is spending. A pie here counts real outlays only — appropriations plus mandatory spending. Authorizations (a ceiling on future spending), loan-guarantee ceilings (the government backstopping private loans, no cash out) and pay-fors are disclosed separately, never summed into the total. A naive “add up every dollar sign” would overstate one of these bills by more than ten times. The error runs the other way too: a tracked total can understate a law — one that mostly authorizes or caps future spending shows only its directly-spent part here, and on some laws the dominant costs never appear as dollar lines in the text at all. Rows where that gap is large carry a note saying so.
Bills on file
30 enacted, 1 never became law- H.R. 7148 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026119th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Feb. 3, 2026 · $2.15T across 36 tracked items in 7 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
- H.R. 5371 — Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2026 (the shutdown-ending CR; Public Law 119-37)119th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Nov. 12, 2025 · $663.0B across 35 tracked items in 8 categories · 42 of 42 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 42 extracted in all
- H.R. 1 — One Big Beautiful Bill Act119th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law 119-21) · signed into law July 4, 2025 · $377.8B across 76 tracked items in 10 categories · 92 of 92 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 92 extracted in allThis total is a tracked floor, not the law’s fiscal size. Its largest dollar dimensions are not written as dollar lines in the operative text; CBO’s estimate of what it does to deficits — stated with its basis — is on the bill page.
- H.R. 1968 — Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025119th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law March 15, 2025 · $1.14T across 35 tracked items in 12 categories · 41 of 41 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 41 extracted in all
- H.R. 2882 — Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024118th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law March 23, 2024 · $1.96T across 41 tracked items in 8 categories · 56 of 56 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 56 extracted in all
- H.R. 4366 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024118th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law March 9, 2024 · $655.0B across 38 tracked items in 9 categories · 44 of 44 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 44 extracted in all
- H.R. 2670 — NDAA FY2024118th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Dec. 22, 2023 · $676.0M across 2 tracked items in 1 category · 33 of 33 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 33 extracted in allThis total is the small appropriated part. This law mostly authorizes: $9.6B of tracked spending ceilings are disclosed on its page, never summed into the total.
- H.R. 4820 — Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024never became law118th Congress · Reported in House (RH) · reported by committee July 24, 2023 · $81.2B across 23 tracked items in 4 categories · 8 of 8 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 30 extracted in all
- H.R. 3746 — Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023118th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law June 3, 2023 · $66.7B across 3 tracked items in 2 categories · 18 of 18 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 18 extracted in allThis total is the small directly-spent part. The law’s operative figures are $6.52T of statutory caps on future spending — limits, deliberately never summed into the total.
- H.R. 2617 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023117th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law 117-328) · signed into law Dec. 29, 2022 · $2.15T across 25 tracked items in 7 categories · 31 of 31 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 31 extracted in all
- H.R. 5376 — Inflation Reduction Act of 2022117th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Aug. 16, 2022 · $183.9B across 36 tracked items in 7 categories · 39 of 39 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 39 extracted in all
- S. 3373 — Honoring our PACT Act of 2022117th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Aug. 10, 2022 · $6.9B across 11 tracked items in 1 category · 30 of 30 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 30 extracted in allThis total is a tracked floor, not the law’s fiscal size. Its largest dollar dimensions are not written as dollar lines in the operative text; CBO’s estimate of what it does to deficits — stated with its basis — is on the bill page.
- H.R. 4346 — CHIPS and Science Act of 2022117th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Aug. 9, 2022 · $54.2B across 27 tracked items in 6 categories · 39 of 39 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 39 extracted in all
- H.R. 2471 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022117th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law 117-103) · signed into law March 15, 2022 · $1.88T across 37 tracked items in 10 categories · 43 of 43 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 43 extracted in all
- H.R. 3684 — Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)117th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law 117-58) · signed into law Nov. 15, 2021 · $279.9B across 22 tracked items in 6 categories · 30 of 30 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 30 extracted in all
- H.R. 1319 — American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA)117th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law March 11, 2021 · $912.2B across 34 tracked items in 10 categories · 39 of 39 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 39 extracted in all
- H.R. 133 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (incl. Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2021)116th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law 116-260) · signed into law Dec. 27, 2020 · $2.15T across 31 tracked items in 8 categories · 40 of 40 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 40 extracted in all
- H.R. 266 — Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act116th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law April 24, 2020 · $483.4B across 6 tracked items in 2 categories · 23 of 24 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 24 extracted in all
- H.R. 748 — CARES Act116th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law 116-136) · signed into law March 27, 2020 · $1.07T across 27 tracked items in 9 categories · 33 of 33 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 37 extracted in all
- H.R. 1865 — Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020116th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Dec. 20, 2019 · $1.36T across 38 tracked items in 10 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
- H.J.Res. 31 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019116th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Feb. 15, 2019 · $281.9B across 29 tracked items in 7 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
- H.R. 6157 — Defense and Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Act, 2019 (Public Law 115-245)115th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Sept. 28, 2018 · $1.47T across 38 tracked items in 4 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
- H.R. 5895 — Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2019 (Public Law 115-244)115th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Sept. 21, 2018 · $266.2B across 42 tracked items in 7 categories · 46 of 46 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 46 extracted in all
- H.R. 1625 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018115th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law March 23, 2018 · $1.38T across 30 tracked items in 12 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
- H.R. 1892 — Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018115th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Feb. 9, 2018 · $110.3B across 33 tracked items in 10 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in allThis total is the small directly-spent part. The law’s operative figures are $2.45T of statutory caps on future spending — limits, deliberately never summed into the total.
- H.R. 244 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017115th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law May 5, 2017 · $1.27T across 35 tracked items in 10 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
- H.R. 5325 — Continuing Appropriations and Military Construction, Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2017 (P.L. 114-223)114th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Sept. 29, 2016 · $196.3B across 32 tracked items in 6 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
- H.R. 2029 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016114th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Dec. 18, 2015 · $1.44T across 37 tracked items in 11 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
- H.R. 83 — Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 (the "CRomnibus"); Public Law 113–235113th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Dec. 16, 2014 · $1.28T across 34 tracked items in 11 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
- H.R. 3547 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 (Public Law 113-76)113th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law Jan. 17, 2014 · $1.20T across 35 tracked items in 11 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
- H.R. 933 — Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013113th Congress · Enrolled (enacted, Public Law) · signed into law March 26, 2013 · $835.2B across 39 tracked items in 11 categories · 45 of 45 sampled figures re-located as exact strings, 45 extracted in all
These 31 laws span 7 Congresses. 26 of them were chosen by the mechanical rule stated below rather than by anyone’s judgment of what matters — and every law that rule has found has now been read, admitted or screened out with the reason published at the bottom of this page. The other 5 were extracted before the rule existed and stay, marked as such — the corpus only ever grows. Every figure is quoted from the bill text and mechanically re-located there as an exact string; 1 could not be, says why on its own row, and is counted as unverified in the tallies above. Each row prints how many of that bill’s figures were checked next to how many were extracted in all; on 2 of 31 the sample is smaller than the set shipped.
The same laws, on one yardstick
compare any two side by side →Nominal dollars from different years are not comparable — a 2013 law reads about a third smaller than a 2025 law of the same size, for no reason but prices. The second column fixes that with the federal government’s own deflator, in FY2025 dollars; the third needs no deflator at all and asks a different question, so the two are a check on each other. Neither is a claim about a law’s merit, and neither is a share of any single year’s budget: most of these laws appropriate money that is spent across several fiscal years. On 5 of 31 rows the tracked total is a floor rather than the law’s fiscal size — those rows say so, and ordering them by this column gets their relative size wrong on purpose.
Swipe the table sideways for more →
Constant dollars use the composite outlay deflator OMB deflates its own historical tables with — a spending-weighted index over what federal outlays actually buy, not a consumer price index, because the federal government does not buy a household’s shopping basket. It is applied at the fiscal year of each law’s action date, which is an approximation for money that spends over a decade; the nominal figure beside it is the one quoted from the bill text and is the only figure here taken from the law itself. 2 of 31 laws fall outside the published deflator series — OMB has not closed that fiscal year yet — and shows no constant-dollar figure rather than an estimated one. Source: OMB Historical Tables, Table 10.1 (Gross Domestic Product and Deflators Used in the Historical Tables: 1940-2031), cross-checked against Table 1.3 · figures. Total federal outlays by fiscal year come from the same tables, and are shown in full at federal spending by year.
The queue is empty
Every law the mechanical screen found has now been read. It scanned 2,149 enacted public laws since the 113th Congress (2013) for a single dollar figure of $50 billion or more, produced 44 candidates, and each one has been extracted and either admitted to the corpus above or screened out with its reason published below. There is no qualifying law this site has found and not read.
This is a statement about the screen, not about Congress. The screen is deliberately crude — one figure, never a sum — so it over-collects on purpose and lets extraction do the deciding. A law whose largest single figure is under $50 billion is not in the corpus and was never a candidate, which is a real limit of the rule and not a claim that no such law matters. The screen re-runs nightly, so a newly enacted law appears here on its own.
Read, and screened out — with the reason
16 lawsA candidate that gets extracted does not automatically join the corpus: the rule admits it only if hand extraction verifies at least $100 billion of budget authority, and a great many large-sounding figures are not that. A statutory spending cap is a limit on future Congresses. An authorization is permission to seek money later. A loan-guarantee ceiling backstops private lending and spends no cash. A debt limit authorizes borrowing, not spending. And a finding — a sentence describing the world — is not money at all. Each law below was read; each verdict is published here rather than left as an absence a reader would have to notice on their own.
| Law | Congress | Screen’s signal |
|---|---|---|
| Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act Short-term continuing resolution: funds the government at prior-year rates ('such amounts as may be necessary') with no aggregate figure and no >=$100B of identifiable new budget authority; its large dollar strings are loan-guarantee ceilings and trust-fund transfers, not spending. | 116th | $1.28T |
| John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 The FY2019 NDAA is an AUTHORIZATION act, not an appropriation: 132 'authorized to be appropriated' ceilings and no >=$100B of actual appropriated budget authority. New authorizations do not enter the corpus under the rule; the grandfathered FY2024 NDAA remains only because it was extracted before the rule. | 115th | $894.5B |
| Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 Extracted and screened out: the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 appropriates nothing. Sixteen verified figures, every one a statutory spending CAP amending the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act (the $671.5B that put it at the top of this queue is the FY2021 discretionary cap) or a CBO-scored offset. Zero appropriating verbs in the enrolled text — no "is appropriated", no "for necessary expenses" — so $0 of budget authority against a $100B threshold. | 116th | $671.5B |
| PLAW-116publ147 Extracted and screened out twice over. Public Law 116-147 is a 1,913-character deadline extension for the Paycheck Protection Program; its single dollar figure, $659,000,000,000, is a loan-guarantee ceiling — the government backstopping private loans, no cash out — so it verifies $0 of budget authority. It also has no recorded vote to cite in either chamber: the Senate passed it by unanimous consent on 2020-06-30 and the House without objection on 2020-07-01, confirmed against both chambers' own vote indexes. | 116th | $659.0B |
| Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 Extracted and screened out: the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 is a caps-and-offsets deal, not an appropriation. Thirty-six verified figures — 17 caps, 13 pay-fors, 6 small mandatory items — totalling $0.2B of budget authority against a $100B threshold, despite the joint resolution's inherited title ("Making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2014"). | 113th | $644.0B |
| Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 Extracted and screened out: the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 is a deficit-reduction and cap-raising deal, not a spending law. Its four largest bill-text figures ($548B/$518B/$551B/$519B, the $551.1B that put it in this queue among them) are statutory discretionary caps amending BBEDCA section 251(c), and its widely quoted “$80 billion” is the CHANGE in those same caps, not money. The law's only appropriating verb provides $500,000,000 from the Spectrum Relocation Fund; with four positive CBO direct-spending rows it verifies $5.4B of budget authority against a $100B threshold, against a CBO bottom line of $79.9B in deficit REDUCTION. | 114th | $551.1B |
| PLAW-117publ50 Extracted and screened out: Public Law 117-50 is a one-sentence statute that raises the federal DEBT LIMIT by $480,000,000,000. A borrowing ceiling is not budget authority — it authorizes no spending at all, only the Treasury's power to finance spending Congress has already approved elsewhere — so it verifies $0 against a $100B threshold. The site's mechanism taxonomy has no debt-limit value and one was deliberately not invented for a law that does not enter the corpus. | 117th | $480.0B |
| National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 Extracted and screened out: the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act appropriates nothing. Forty-three verified figures, every one an authorization ceiling, a carve-out inside one, a guarantee cap or a rescission — 128 “authorized to be appropriated” clauses and zero appropriating verbs — so $0 of budget authority against a $100B threshold, with $988.5B of authorizations disclosed. The same verdict the FY2019 and FY2024 NDAAs got; the FY2024 one remains on the site only because it predates the rule. | 119th | $471.9B |
| Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act of 2018 Extracted and screened out at zero line-items: the Women's Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act of 2018 is a USAID program-reform and reporting statute with no appropriations and no authorizations. Its enacted text contains exactly two dollar figures, and the $300 billion that put it in this queue is a congressional FINDING about the size of the global gender credit gap — a description of the world, not money this law moves. | 115th | $300.0B |
| Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024 Extracted and screened out at $93.4B — the closest call the rule has produced. The National Security Supplemental (Israel, Ukraine, Indo-Pacific) is a genuine appropriations act, and an independent parse of every account-level appropriation in it sums to $95.3B, below the $100B corpus threshold. It is excluded because the threshold applies to every law identically, not because of anything about its subject. The $300,000,000,000 that put it in this queue is a congressional finding about immobilised Russian sovereign assets, not United States money. | 118th | $300.0B |
| Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act Extracted and screened out at zero: S. 2155, the Dodd-Frank tailoring law, appropriates nothing. It contains no appropriating verb at all, and all fifteen of its distinct dollar figures are regulatory ASSET THRESHOLDS applying to private banks. The $250,000,000,000 that put it in this queue is the enhanced-prudential-standards threshold — the size a bank has to reach before stricter supervision applies — not money. This is the clearest false positive the mechanical screen has produced, and it is recorded rather than quietly dropped: a screen that never misfires is a screen doing hidden judgment. | 115th | $250.0B |
| Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act Extracted and screened out at $70.2B: the FAST Act's roughly $305 billion headline runs on Highway Trust Fund CONTRACT AUTHORITY and obligation limitations, not appropriations — the mechanism by which highway money reaches states without an appropriations act, and one this site never sums into a spending total. Its verified budget authority falls below the $100B corpus threshold. | 114th | $135.0B |
| 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Extracted and screened out at zero: the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is a housing-policy law. Its single dollar-denominated funding provision is a $200,000,000-a-year authorization for an Innovation Fund, and section 1202 states that no additional funds are authorized. The $96.3B that put it in this queue is not an appropriation. (Its CBO estimate sits behind a bot check that could not be read; if it turns out to score material direct spending, this verdict gets revisited and the change logged.) | 119th | $96.3B |
| Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018 Extracted and screened out at zero, and it fails the vote rule too. The Asia Reassurance Initiative Act is entirely authorization: nine dollar strings, six of them annual “authorized to be appropriated” ceilings, and not one appropriating verb. It also has no recorded vote in EITHER chamber — the Senate passed it by unanimous consent and the House by voice vote — verified against both chambers' complete vote indexes for the 115th Congress. | 115th | $77.0B |
| FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 Extracted and screened out at $1.7B: the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 is a reauthorization. Of the 82 dollar figures in its enacted text exactly one provides money; the rest are authorization ceilings, contract-authority levels and programme caps. Its $60B headline is authority to seek future appropriations, not budget authority this law confers. | 115th | $60.0B |
| Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act Extracted and screened out at $47M: the GENIUS Act is a regulatory statute for payment stablecoins. Every dollar figure in its enacted text is an issuance threshold or a supervisory trigger applying to private firms; the only spending anywhere in its record is a CBO estimate of the cost of administering it. | 119th | $50.0B |
The figure in the last column is the screen’s signal — the largest single dollar figure in the law’s text — and on these rows it is precisely the number that turned out not to be spending. That is the point of printing it beside the verdict.