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
2017-12-22 · Taxes & budget · initiative
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
11 of 97
Layer 1 — Action
Public Law 115-97, signed December 22, 2017. Passed 51-48 in the Senate and 224-201 in the House, with no Democratic votes.
Cut the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, reduced individual rates through 2025, capped the state and local tax deduction, and nearly doubled the standard deduction.
Layer 2 —
Corporate provisions permanent; individual provisions extended by OBBBA in 2025
The corporate rate cut was permanent. The individual provisions were scheduled to expire after 2025 and were extended by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025.
Verified as of August 2026
Whether the corporate cut "paid for itself" is settled: no nonpartisan scorekeeper found that it did. Whether the distribution was fair is a value judgment this archive does not make.
Layer 3 — Measured effects
Federal revenue was lower than it would have been under prior law.
$1.46 trillion added to deficits over 2018-2027 on a conventional basis.
Joint Committee on Taxation, Dec 2017
Nonpartisan congressional scorekeeper
$1.9 trillion over 2018-2028 including debt-service costs.
Congressional Budget Office, 2018
Nonpartisan congressional scorekeeper
Dynamic feedback offset roughly 20% of the static cost.
JCT macroeconomic analysis
Nonpartisan congressional scorekeeper
Business investment rose in 2018 relative to 2017, then decelerated in 2019 before the pandemic.
Investment growth in 2018 was consistent with the law’s incentives but within the range of ordinary cyclical variation.
Federal Reserve / BEA fixed investment data
Government statistical agency
The law raised long-run GDP by roughly 0.7% — a real but modest effect, well short of self-financing.
Tax Foundation
Advocacy — pro-growth / lower-tax orientation
Growth effects were near zero and gains accrued disproportionately to capital owners.
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Advocacy — progressive orientation
Distribution of the tax cut across income groups.
All income quintiles received an average tax cut in 2018; the largest percentage-of-income cuts went to the 95th-99th percentiles.
Tax Policy Center distributional tables
Nonpartisan (Urban-Brookings), read as center-left by critics
Roughly 65% of households paid less in 2018 than under prior law; about 6% paid more, concentrated in high-SALT states.