Earmark Data

Even under an existing moratorium, earmarks have received a lot of attention in the media, in Congress, and around the water cooler in recent years. But despite the interest there is a good deal of disagreement about the definition of earmark, the role of earmarking in the budget process, whether it is an appropriate use of Congress's time, and whether earmarks serve the interests of taxpayers.

At Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), we have been bringing transparency and accountability to the federal budget since our founding in 1995. Part of this work involves explaining and advocating for earmark reform. In the years of transparency (fiscal years 2008-10), TCS created extensive databases with all of the earmark data and has made this information available to the public. For years before fiscal year 2008, TCS has data but it is less comprehensive. To view our Earmark datasets, click here.

Sandy “Emergency” Funding Data

In late January, three months after Superstorm Sandy slammed into the east coast, Congress passed the $60 billion emergency sandy supplemental bill, H.R. 152, appropriating $50.3 billion for relief and reconstruction efforts and adding $9.7 billion to cover flood insurance claims. Now that we’ve reached the one-year anniversary of Sandy’s landfall, it’s time to look at what’s been spent.

The Sandy Supplemental data presented here was primarily collected from the website of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  The levels of expenditure reflect government spending through August 31 – the most recent data available.  How much each agency has obligated and outlayed as a percentage of what was appropriated was calculated using the post-sequestration appropriation levels.  Data of Sandy Supplemental funds spent through contracts is available from the Federal Procurement Data System and Federal Transparency.gov. To view our Sandy “Emergency” Funding Data, click here.

Sandy Supplemental

The data set contains the President’s original request, the Senate-passed proposal from the 112th Congress, the current House proposal (H.R. 152), and the Rep. Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) amendment to the House bill. To view the Sandy Supplemental Data, click here.

Terms of Use

Because all of the data we offer is public information, we ask that all users agree to these basic terms of use, that:

• information provided by TCS in whatever form is meant for research, educational, or journalistic purposes only;
• TCS Data shall not be used for commercial purposes, to solicit contributions, or sold to third-parties;
• and that appropriate credit will be given to TCS for all reports, articles, mashups, or other use of our data, including a link back to our website for all items published on the web.