Data Tools

Below are links to our Graphing & Data Tools, Tutorials for using the Tools, Example Graphs, and Additional Data-Related Resources.

The Policy Analysis Tool and Budget Trends Tools are web-based forms that allow you to graph trends from our datasets.

The Policy Analysis Tool features our core policy datasets (currently Congressional Hearings, Public Laws, New York Times Stories, Executive Orders, Gallup's Most Important Problem Poll, and Congressional Quarterly Stories). Using the tool, you can:

• Graph and compare attention to specific policy issues across these venues.
• Find original source information from the drill down table.
• Download customized, filtered versions of our core datasets.

The Budget Trends Tools graphs budget trends for the total budget, budget functions, and subfunctions from the Congressional Budget Authority. This tool can graph the budget Fiscal Year 2005 Dollars and Current Year Dollars. A second version of the web tool can graph the percent of the total budget that each function and subfunction comprises.

The newest addition is a mixed policy and budget tool, which can graph data from the core datasets and the related budget for specific policy topics and budget functions on a single chart. See the Policy-Budget Crosswalk to find out which budget functions best overlap policy topics.

Below are detailed tutorials that offer a step-by-step guide to using the graphing tools. There are also some example graphs in our Tutorials section below to show what sort of information can be derived from our data sets. The Scenarios provide some exercises for using the variety of resources available on the website, including the example graphs, the policy analysis tool, and the raw datasets.

Also see the additional data-related resources, including a sortable committee table and information about Congressional Committee Jurisdictions over time, to supplement the core data sets.

Graphing & Data Tools

• Policy Analysis
• Budget Trends
• Mixed Policy & Budget

Tutorials

• Policy Analysis Tool Tutorial
• Budget Tool Tutorial
• Chart Tutorial
• Graph Examples
• Scenarios

Additional Data-Related Resources

• Policy-Budget Crosswalk
  Because Budget functions do not overlap perfectly with our policy topic codes, this crosswalk indicates how well budget functions match policy topics.
• Sortable Congressional Committees Table
  This feature allows you to sort by committee codes and by committee names, making it easier to find information about congressional committees.
• Committee Jurisdiction Measures (Herfindahl Indexes)
  Congressional committee jurisdictions are often unclear and overlap with other committees. We developed indicators of jurisdictional clarity based on the proportion of total legislative attention (the number of committee hearings) to a given issue across committees (for a measure of overlap) or the proportion of total committee attention across issues (for a measure of span).