Appropriations
We demystify the appropriations process to empower congressional staff and other civil society groups to engage in the extraordinarily important process of turning priorities into policy.
We also provide trackers, explainers, and more to model how Congress should create more transparency about the federal funding process.
We shape appropriations at every step of the process:
We make specific recommendations to Congress about what to fund. Read our full list of appropriations recommendations for FY 2024.
We testify before Congress to advocate for those recommendations.
We push for greater transparency at every level, and demonstrate how Congress should disclose data about the process.
The appropriations process is convoluted and opaque. Decisions about how to spend tax dollars shouldn’t be made by special interest lobbyists, but by all of us. Congress should be doing all it can to open up the process to the public by publishing testimony, giving notice of scheduled hearings, and publishing draft and final bills in one centralized location.
Read our resources and primers designed to help the public and other civil society groups get involved, including:
- a guide on how to track House approps markups
- an explainer on Congress’s Power of the Purse
- a repository of reports and testimony from the last half-decade
- a report produced in collaboration with Public Citizen, on how the Executive branch has encroached on congressional spending authority — and what we can do about it
- How House Committees Get their Money
- How Senate Committees Get their Money
- Tracking FY 2024 Appropriations Testimony and Hearing Deadlines
- Items Included In FY 2024 Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill Report
- Tracking Appropriations Committee Members by Their Subcommittee
- Detailed Summary of FY 2023 Appropriations Legislation
And we make a big difference:
Our recommendations have informed a fundamental transformation of how Congress funds its own operations, and thus, its ability to govern. Congress is finally paying its staff a living wage, it funded the creation of a new House Intern Resource Office, and it has increased funding for the legislative policy support agencies like the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service.
We had similar success in other appropriations bills. The House Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government included apportionment transparency, the development of federal internships, transparency around White House visitor logs, centralized access to agency budget justifications, and more.
To reverse the systematic undermining of Congress, Congress needs to invest in itself. We have done the research and made the case illustrating how Congress is always first on the chopping block, why that is self-defeating, and what to do about it. Taking control of the federal budget is another way of restoring congressional power. By asserting its authority over the appropriations process, Congress will be reclaiming one of its constitutional powers: the Power of the Purse.