Every Dime. Online. In Real Time.
At OpenTheBooks.com, we work hard to capture and post all disclosed spending at every level of government – federal, state, and local. In 2022, we filed 50,000 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and captured 25 million public employee pension and salary records. We also broke open the California state checkbook for the first time in American history. We are rapidly growing our data in all 50 states down to the municipal level. We won't stop until we capture every dime taxed and spent by our government.
As a government watchdog organization, we accept no government funding.
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OpenTheBooks.com is a project of American Transparency – a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan charitable organization. All donations are tax deductible for federal or state income tax purposes to the fullest extent of the law.
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"Open The Books is doing the work I envisioned...
putting sunlight through a magnifying glass."
Former U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn, Honorary Chairman of OpenTheBooks.com
RIP: March 2020
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What We Do
Question & Answers
We follow the national news cycle closely and apply our unique data to breaking news stories. Our data adds to the national narrative and provide a new angle for the country's most-covered stories.
Oversight Reports
We publish in-depth oversight reports on the federal, state, and local government entities. Our reports are unique, providing detailed insight to the intricate ways tax dollars are spent.
Unique Database
Our goal is to put every government expense online in real time. The data is accessible online to everyone including public citizens, investigative reporters, academics, think tanks, politicians, etc.
What We Believe
It's your money, and you deserve to see where every dime is spent! We believe taxpayers have a constitutional right to government oversight. We believe hard data is a game changer. Once citizens are able to see how the government spends their money, it will influence how they vote and how they view their government.
View Our Latest IRS 990 Informational Return
The investigative work of Open The Books has fomented a revolution in fiscal transparency."
Roger Kimball, The Wall Street Journal - July 11, 2017