Where the numbers came from.

Spending

1. More than eight thousand directed projects in this year's spending bills, coming to roughly $15.5 billion.

   Congressional earmark disclosure tables, House and Senate Appropriations Committees, FY2026.

2. The deficit running near two trillion dollars.

   Congressional Budget Office, budget and economic outlook update, 2026. CBO's FY2026 projection is $2.1 trillion.

Social Security

1. Reserve exhaustion around 2034 and an automatic across-the-board reduction of roughly a fifth.

   Social Security Board of Trustees, annual report. The exhaustion year moves a little in each edition.

2. Raising the retirement age to 69 and indexing it closes roughly a third of the gap.

   Congressional Budget Office budget options (24%) and Peter G. Peterson Foundation / Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (~36%). The site takes the middle of that range; it is a range, not a point estimate.

3. A new bend point at the seventieth percentile with the top factors cut; bottom two-thirds essentially unchanged, middle fifth under one percent, top fifth down about thirteen percent.

   Congressional Budget Office, Reduce Social Security Benefits for High Earners, Budget Option 60911, including its distribution tables. This is the best-sourced figure on the site.

4. The payroll tax stops at $184,500 of wages in 2026, and about six percent of covered workers earn above it.

   Social Security Administration, contribution and benefit base, 2026.

Medicare

1. Medicare pays roughly two and a half times more for identical outpatient services in a hospital outpatient department than in a physician's office, and the differential is worth about $157 billion over ten years.

   Congressional Budget Office, Reduce Payments for Hospital Outpatient Departments, Budget Option 60908. The 2.5x and $157 billion figures are CBO's, summarized by the Bipartisan Policy Center. Broader site-neutrality scores higher still, around $180 billion, per the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

2. The echocardiogram comparison, roughly eleven to thirteen hundred dollars in a hospital outpatient department against about three hundred in an office.

   CBO, same option. These are older figures and the site states them in the past tense for that reason.

3. Limiting Medicare Advantage upcoding saves over $150 billion in a decade; a twenty percent reduction in the benchmark would on its own close the hospital trust fund's long-term solvency gap.

   Congressional Budget Office Medicare savings options, summarized by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. This is the largest single figure on the site and it deserves the scrutiny.

4. American drug prices at 2.78 times those in thirty-three comparison countries; brand-name drugs at 4.22 times, or more than three times after rebates; generics cheaper here.

   RAND Corporation for HHS, International Prescription Drug Price Comparisons: Estimates Using 2022 Data. RAND summary. The generic figure is the one worth checking against the report yourself.

5. Three pharmacy benefit managers handle about eighty percent of American prescriptions.

   Federal Trade Commission staff reporting on pharmacy benefit managers.

Welfare

1. Federal cash assistance has carried a five-year lifetime limit since 1996, and a dozen states set theirs shorter.

   Title IV-A of the Social Security Act as amended in 1996; HHS Administration for Children and Families; Congressional Research Service summaries of state time limits.

Energy and concentration

1. Four companies control more than eighty percent of the fed cattle market, and the Justice Department is investigating.

   USDA Packers and Stockyards Division reporting on packer concentration; Department of Justice announcements regarding the largest meatpackers.

Defense

1. The United States spends more on defense than the next six countries combined, about a third of world military spending.

   Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, military expenditure data for 2025; Peter G. Peterson Foundation. This comparison was next-nine in 2024 and next-six in 2025 as European spending rose. It will keep moving.

2. Eight consecutive failed audits, twenty-six material weaknesses, the only major agency never to have passed, and disclaimed programs covering roughly two-thirds of budget resources. The Marine Corps has passed three years running.

   Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, annual report on the audit of the DoD financial statements, FY2025.

3. Financial management on the high-risk list since 1995.

   Government Accountability Office High-Risk List.

4. The F-35 projected to cost more than two trillion dollars across its life, with spare parts not properly accounted for.

   Government Accountability Office reporting on F-35 sustainment costs.

Veterans

1. A review of thirty-seven studies finding VA clinical quality and safety equal to or better than non-VA care in most, and patient experience equal or better in all.

   Peer-reviewed systematic review of studies comparing care in VA and non-VA settings. Access and cost outcomes in the same review were mixed, which is the basis for the access-not-quality framing in the platform.

2. Eight percent of private providers understood military culture, against seventy percent inside the VA.

   RAND Corporation research on provider readiness to treat veterans.

3. About two-thirds of veterans oppose replacing VA care with vouchers.

   Veterans service organization survey work and public polling of veterans.

The figures with nothing behind them

Four claims on this site are not sourced. Three are probably right and one is an illustration. I would rather list them here than have you find them.

What will go out of date