What's Actually in the Bill — Who Watches the Watchdogs

What every breakdown covers

What it really does

From the bill text and the Congressional Research Service summaries on Congress.gov — the provisions themselves, not the press release about them.

What it costs

The Congressional Budget Office estimate for the bill as passed or enacted, stated over the CBO's own budget window, including debt-service costs where CBO reports them.

Pet projects & named set-asides

Earmarks and named allocations, with the member or committee that put them there. If a pass through the text is still in progress, the breakdown says so — nothing is listed from memory or from coverage.

Funding source

Where the money comes from: appropriations, fees, trust funds, offsets claimed in the text, or borrowing. A bill that spends without paying is recorded as deficit-financed.

Status & votes

Where the bill stands and the recorded votes, from Congress.gov.

Breakdown No. 1 — the 2025 reconciliation law (H.R.1)

Enacted law · Public Law 119-21 · Sources: Congress.gov and the Congressional Budget Office

H.R.1 — the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (119th Congress)

What it is: A budget reconciliation law — the FY2025 reconciliation package moved under title II of H. Con. Res. 14. Reconciliation bills pass the Senate by simple majority and are limited to tax, spending and debt-limit provisions.
What it really does: Per the Congressional Research Service summaries on Congress.gov: it extends and makes permanent many provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, adds new tax deductions (including for certain overtime pay), restructures Medicaid and SNAP, carries defence, border-security and immigration provisions, eliminates many clean-energy tax incentives, and raises the statutory debt limit.
What it costs: CBO's estimate for the law as enacted (August 4, 2025): Public Law 119-21 increases the cumulative deficit by $4.1 trillion over 2025–2034, including $718 billion in additional debt-service costs. For scale, CBO's earlier estimate of the House-passed version put the primary deficit effect at $2.4 trillion before debt service.
Pet projects & named set-asides: In preparation. Classic earmarks live in appropriations bills; a reconciliation law's equivalents are named set-asides and directed allocations inside its titles. Our provision-by-provision pass through the enacted text is under way, and named items will be listed here — with the title and section they sit in — only once verified in the text.
Funding source: Deficit-financed. The law's net effect is additional borrowing: revenue reductions exceed outlay reductions on CBO's estimate, and the difference is covered by Treasury borrowing — which is why the same law raises the debt limit.
Status & votes: Became Public Law 119-21 on July 4, 2025, signed the same day. Final House agreement July 3, 2025, 218–214; Senate passage July 1, 2025, 51–50.
Sources: Congress.gov — H.R.1, 119th Congress (actions, text, CRS summaries) · Congressional Budget Office — effects of Public Law 119-21 on deficits and debt

Further breakdowns follow as they are fully sourced from bill text. A breakdown is published when every line in it can be pointed at in the text or in a CBO/CRS document — not before.