Government Spending & Your Money
When a Georgia Town Lost Track of an $8 Million Grant: What It Means for Texas
A local government takes in millions of federal dollars meant for a specific purpose, spends most of it, and then...
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How to Read Your Texas City Budget
Every year, your city council votes on a document that decides how many police patrol your neighborhood, how often your...
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DOGE Flags $47 Billion in Duplicate Programs: What Texas’s Share Looks Like
A Texan who pays federal taxes is, in effect, helping fund more than 160 separate workforce training programs spread across...
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A Contractor Billed $800 an Hour for Unfinished Work in Texas
The invoice said $800 an hour. The badge reader at the door said nobody had shown up. That gap, between...
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The Texas Earmarks Tucked Into the Latest Spending Bill
A harbor that needs dredging on the Gulf Coast. A rural broadband line in a county where the nearest connection...
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The Five Largest Federal Contracts in Texas Last Quarter
On the south side of Houston sits a 1,600-acre campus where mission control has guided American spaceflight since the 1960s....
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Examining the $3.1 Million ‘Selfie Study’ Texans Helped Fund
Texans pay federal taxes too, and like everyone else they bristle at the idea of those dollars funding something absurd....
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72 Hours to a Shutdown: What Closes in Texas
If you are flying out of Dallas, Houston, or Austin this summer, a budget fight in Washington could show up...
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What the EPA’s 31% Budget Cut Means for Texas
Most Texans never think about the Environmental Protection Agency until something goes wrong with their water. But the federal money...
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How a Debt-Ceiling Default Would Hit Texas
For a retiree in Fort Worth who counts on a Social Security deposit hitting the bank on the same day...
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The Federal Spending Wire tracks how federal, state, and local government spending actually lands on Texas households — property taxes, utility bills, benefits, jobs, and the tax dollars flowing through Washington and Austin alike. Every figure is sourced to the public record, so you can see exactly where your money went.