https://blog.jbledger.com/categories/federal/Recent content in Federal on The Public LedgerHugoen-usSat, 12 Sep 2026 17:00:00 +0000https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/teaching-the-federal-budget-in-48-steps/Sat, 12 Sep 2026 17:00:00 +0000https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/teaching-the-federal-budget-in-48-steps/Eleven modules, 48 narrated steps, one data spine: the training program that ties the whole portfolio together — what each module teaches, how every number is frozen and self-tested, and how to work through it.https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/did-cbos-baseline-age-well/Sat, 12 Sep 2026 14:00:00 +0000https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/did-cbos-baseline-age-well/Three published vintages of CBO’s 10-Year Budget Projections checked against the actuals CBO later reported: receipts +$197bn above baseline, the deficit $162bn smaller — if you know which rows are forecasts and which are restatements.https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/what-a-sequester-a-cr-and-a-lapse-do-to-the-money/Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:00:00 +0000https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/what-a-sequester-a-cr-and-a-lapse-do-to-the-money/The flow simulator follows a real appropriation — budget authority to obligations to outlays, month by month — and lets you pull the levers. Real data, frozen, with a scenario engine that applies each lever in a fixed, documented order.https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/putting-the-federal-budget-in-a-database/Sat, 12 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/putting-the-federal-budget-in-a-database/USAspending, Treasury, and FRED — no API keys, one SQLite file, 46,042 rows, and an audit trail for every call. The spine the rest of my portfolio runs on, and the three things the public data got wrong along the way.