USAspending

RSG #344: How to Investigate Government Payments Made Through Intermediaries

Government money rarely travels in a straight line. Learn how to follow federal funds through contractors, nonprofit organizations, fiscal agents, consultants, subrecipients, and conveniently forgettable corporate entities. Public officials love announcing that an agency awarded ten million dollars to improve public safety, protect vulnerable families, or modernize something that worked perfectly well before a consultant …

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RSG #332: How To Trace Public Money Through Pass Through Nonprofits and Fiscal Sponsors

Public money rarely travels in a straight line. Congress funds an agency. The agency awards a state, city, university, or nonprofit. That recipient sends part of the award to another organization. A fiscal sponsor may then hold the money for a project that has no separate tax exemption, public filing, or obvious legal identity. By …

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RSG #325: How To Audit Government Savings Claims That May Be Mostly Fiction

When politicians announce billions in savings, do not applaud until you inspect the arithmetic, the contracts, and the suspiciously empty space where the receipts should be. Government officials love announcing savings. Savings sound responsible. Savings sound efficient. Savings fit beautifully inside a social media graphic designed for people who will never ask whether the money …

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Resistance Kitty investigates a government program that remains authorized by law while its funding, staff, application portal, and public services disappear.

RSG #322: How To Find the Government Program That Disappeared Without Being Formally Eliminated

Resistance Survival Guide #322 A government program does not always die with a press conference, a congressional vote, or even a properly signed piece of paper. Sometimes officials simply stop hiring the staff, announcing the grants, processing the applications, publishing the reports, answering the telephone, or updating the webpage. The program remains legally alive while …

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RSG #319: How To Investigate a Government Contractor’s Hidden Subcontractors

A government contract may display the name of one large corporation, but that does not mean one company is performing all the work. The prime contractor may quietly divide the project among data brokers, cloud providers, consultants, software developers, staffing companies, and surveillance vendors. Those hidden companies can collect the information, build the system, train …

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