The figures that matter most, each traceable to one entry and one named source.
Standing rule: no scores. Color marks whether something is in force, reversed, contested, concluded, or permanent, not good or bad.
Unscored · 97 entries · last change 2026-08-16
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Color is a legal fact, not an opinion. It shows (whether something is still in force, was reversed, or is contested in court), never whether it was good or bad.
Every number links to its source and to how strongly it can be tied to the action (). Click any figure to see the full evidence.
Nothing here is scored, graded, or ranked. When two credible sources disagree, this archive shows both numbers instead of picking one.
Wins are in here too. See or filter the Ledger by .
Nobody is asking you to trust a byline. There isn’t one — the archive is anonymous, on purpose, which is exactly why it has to be checkable without one. See and check one entry against its own source yourself.
Public approval37% approve · 57% disapproveNet approval of roughly −21 is the lowest of either term, below his post-January-6 floor of −19. Independent approval near 34%.Polling averages, early August 2026
Next scheduled testMidterm elections, November 2026Three months out. Independent approval below the level that preceded the 2018 wave; the entire House and a third of the Senate are on the ballot.Election calendar
Figures of record
▲ and ▼ are direction. Color is measured : who paid, who gained, not whether that was right. Click a figure that has an entry. Not every figure here is a cost. Filter to just .
▲$2.8T
added to the national debt so far this term
18 months in; the JEC reported $2.77T year-over-year in April 2026
Net cost
Added since January 2025 — from $36.22T to roughly $39T. Borne by future taxpayers through debt service; sources put the range at $2.2T–$2.8T depending on cut-off.
Gross national debt · Treasury / Federal Reserve
▲54
more federal judges confirmed this term
On top of 234 in the first term
Transfer
9 appellate, 45 district. Ahead of the 2018 confirmation pace but with a far thinner pipeline — 60 nominees submitted against 137 by this date in 2018.
Lifetime judgeships filled this term · Senate confirmation record
▲369K
total jobs added, Jan 2025 – Mar 2026
vs. 1,565,000 in the final 14 months prior
Transfer
Positive but roughly a quarter the pace of the preceding 14 months. Private sector +609K, offset by federal cuts.
Total nonfarm employment · BLS via FactCheck.org
What this archive is made of
97 entries, 203 effect claims, 520 sourced estimates, 230 linked documents. Zero scores, grades, or rankings.
Where every entry stands today
Color here is a legal and operational fact, not an opinion: whether the action is still in force, was reversed or never fulfilled, is contested in court, has concluded, or is irreversible.
Coverage by domain
Bar segments show the standing mix inside each domain. Click any row to open it in the ledger.
The honesty check on the whole archive. If nearly everything claimed Direct, the archive would be overreaching. Amber marks claims where credible sources reach incompatible conclusions.
Direct138
Contributory28
Contextual20
Disputed17
What the evidence is made of
Every estimate in the archive, grouped by the kind of institution that produced it. Advocacy sources are admissible but never appear alone.
Primary document157
Government data79
Party to the action67
Academic / peer-reviewed52
Nonpartisan scorekeeper41
Advocacy — labeled31
Journalistic verification26
Named / interested parties24
Archive reasoning — not a source17
Cross-ideological convergence13
Mixed / other11
Polling aggregate2
The disagreement, charted
These are the numbers people argue with. Each bar is one published estimate at its own value, never averaged into a single figure, because the width of the gap is itself the finding.
10-year deficit effect — OBBBA
$ trillions, 2025–2034
CBO, excl. interest3.4
CBO, incl. interest4.1
CBO, dynamic (thru 2035)4.7
CRFB, if made permanent5.5
10-year deficit effect — TCJA
$ trillions
JCT, dynamic1.07
JCT, conventional1.46
CBO, incl. interest1.9
Project 2025 implementation — competing trackers
% of that tracker’s own agenda list
CPR / GFI — 532 proposals, method published53
Crowdsourced tracker — 317 objectives, no method48
Employment effect — steel & aluminum tariffs
jobs
Steel production jobs added1000
Steel-consuming mfg. jobs lost-75000
2025-01-20 · Federal workforce & agencies · initiative
Federal workforce reductions and agency restructuring
52 of 97
Layer 1 — Action
Executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency, January 20, 2025, followed by agency-level RIF directives and a deferred resignation offer.
A government efficiency initiative pursued mass deferred resignations, reductions in force, and the dismantling or consolidation of several agencies including USAID.
Layer 2 —
Concluded July 4, 2026; savings claims found substantially unverifiable
DOGE shut down on its self-imposed termination date of July 4, 2026, with its duties absorbed by other agencies and no final accounting produced. On August 6, 2026 the GAO reported that of the $110 billion in claimed savings it audited, large portions were overstated, unverifiable, or never occurred. The workforce reduction itself was real: federal civilian employment fell about 352,000, or 11.7%. The hiring freeze has since ended.
Verified as of August 2026
This is the entry where sourcing discipline matters most: the initiative’s own savings ledger is a party-to-the-action source and has a documented error rate. It is cited here as a claim, never as a measurement.
Layer 3 — Measured effects
Federal civilian employment declined.
Federal civilian employment fell materially over 2025 per the establishment survey.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Government statistical agency
Of $61 billion in claimed contract savings, more than half — nearly $35 billion — was either not terminated or could not be corroborated. Nearly 2,000 of 13,476 contracts DOGE said it terminated were not.
GAO report, August 6, 2026
Independent government watchdog
About 96% of the $49.2 billion claimed from terminating roughly 16,000 grants could not be verified. 108 of 264 lease terminations were already being phased out before DOGE existed.
GAO report, August 6, 2026
Independent government watchdog
A $1.7 billion Defense Health Agency IT contract was claimed as savings but never terminated or reduced: "Thus, no savings were achieved."
GAO report, August 6, 2026
Independent government watchdog
The audit was requested by Senators Blumenthal and Peters, both Democrats — stated here because who commissions an audit is part of reading it. GAO is nonpartisan and the findings are documentary.
Archive’s own reasoning — not a source claim
Archive’s own reasoning — not a source claim
Net fiscal effect must be offset against severance, rehiring, lost revenue collection, and litigation costs.
Budget analysts across the spectrum
Cross-ideological convergence
Effects of USAID dismantlement on program delivery.
Modeling published in The Lancet projected substantial excess mortality from aid interruption through 2030.
Peer-reviewed modeling study
Academic, global-health orientation
Projections rest on counterfactual assumptions about replacement funding from other donors.