Federal spending in plain words

PB Spending Watch explains federal spending, earmarks, the budget process, shutdowns and the debt ceiling in plain words and without taking sides. Every fact is checked against Congress.gov, the Congressional Budget Office, USAspending.gov, the Government Accountability Office, appropriations committee reports and the Federal Register. Porkbusters.org was once home to PorkBusters, a campaign against congressional earmarks run by bloggers from 2006 to 2010, and a new, independent team relaunched it in 2026 as PB Spending Watch.

  • Congress.gov
  • CBO
  • USAspending.gov
  • GAO
  • Federal Register

Latest updates

  • The 2008 Bailout Bill: What Was in It and What It Cost

    The 2008 Bailout Bill: What Was in It and What It Cost

    The 2008 bailout law created the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Treasury ended up spending about $443.5 billion of that, and the program’s lifetime net cost came to roughly $31 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office. Congress banned…

Earmarks

All earmark stories

How federal spending works

Three ideas explain most of the news about federal money: how it gets approved, where it gets steered, and what happens when it stops.

01

Appropriations

Congress funds discretionary spending through 12 annual appropriations bills, which are meant to pass before the federal fiscal year begins on October 1. When they run late, a continuing resolution keeps money flowing at current levels until the full bills are done.

Federal budget stories
02

Earmarks

Money that a member of Congress directs to a named project back home is called an earmark. Banned from 2011, earmarks returned for fiscal 2022 as Community Project Funding in the House and Congressionally Directed Spending in the Senate, with sponsors’ names published.

Earmark stories
03

Shutdowns and the debt ceiling

A shutdown starts when funding lapses and agencies must stop any work that is not essential. The debt limit is a separate cap on how much the Treasury may borrow to pay for spending Congress has already approved.

Budget fights

Congress

All

Federal Budget

All

From the PorkBusters archive

From 2006 to 2010, this address was home to PorkBusters, a campaign run by bloggers against congressional earmarks, and some of its posts are kept here with their original dates and a short update at the top explaining how each story ended. PB Spending Watch has no connection with the people who ran it.

Where the numbers come from

  • Congress.govBill text, recorded votes and the current status of legislation, straight from the official record kept by the Library of Congress.
  • Congressional Budget OfficeNonpartisan cost estimates for bills in Congress, along with regular reports on the budget and economic outlook.
  • USAspending.govSearchable records showing who receives federal contracts, grants and loans, and how much each recipient was awarded.
  • Government Accountability OfficeIndependent audits and investigations of how federal programs spend money, prepared for Congress by its own watchdog agency.
  • Federal RegisterProposed rules, final rules and public notices from federal agencies, published every business day in the government’s official daily journal.