The Rational Moderate

A living directory of the primary data sources and research institutions used in our reporting and analysis. We prioritize primary sources, transparent methodology, and up-to-date releases.

U.S. government data sources

Federal legislative and executive

• Congress.gov — Bill text and summaries, sponsors, committee actions, roll call votes
• Congressional Budget Office (CBO) — Budget analysis, economic projections, cost estimates and scoring
• Government Accountability Office (GAO) — Program evaluations, audits, and federal performance reports
• Office of Management and Budget (OMB) — Budget documents and federal performance resources
• Congressional Research Service (CRS) — Policy research reports (available via congressional offices or EveryCRSReport.com)
• Federal Election Commission (FEC) — Campaign finance filings, enforcement actions, election data
• GovTrack.us — Congressional tracking and analysis tools
• LegiStorm — Congressional staff, salaries, and financial disclosures

Economic data

• Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) — Employment, wages, inflation (CPI), productivity
• Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) — GDP and national accounts, regional economic data
• FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) — Curated time series with download and visualization tools
• U.S. Census Bureau — Demographics, income and poverty, housing, business data
• U.S. Department of the Treasury — Debt data, extraordinary measures, and related updates

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Verification and update standards

• Cross-check key stats across at least two credible sources when possible.
• Confirm release dates and note revisions (especially for economic series).
• Link to primary documents (tables, technical notes, methodology pages).
• Prefer transparent methods and clearly documented definitions.

Access notes

• Some sources require accounts, subscriptions, or institutional access. When access is restricted, we link to official public landing pages and note alternatives where available.