11/87Cases of child pornography investigated by the federal government in 1982: 82
11/87Number of public officials charged with corruption by the federal government in 1986: 916
10/88Portion of all drought insurance premiums that are paid by the federal government: 1/4
4/88Percentage change, since 1981, in federal funds budgeted for subsidized housing: -81
Federal funds spent last year to promote celibacy among teenagers: $3,000,000
9/88Amount the federal government paid outside consultants last year: $4,100,000,000
1/89Chances that a corporate merger in 1980 was challenged by the federal government: 1 in 68
Chances that a corporate merger today will be challenged: 1 in 328
1/89Federal funds budgeted to move the Reagans out of the White House: $1,250,000
8/89Amount the federal government spent last year to develop a vaccine for AIDS: $53,925,000
8/90Total number of documents classified as “secret” or “top secret” by the federal government last year: 5,506,720
8/90Federal funds to be spent this year on lead-lined trucks to house the administration during nuclear attack: $58,000,000
Amount the President proposes to spend on this program next year: $85,000,000
8/90Federal funds spent on drug-rehabilitation programs for state and local prison inmates last year: $2,000,000
Federal funds budgeted for these programs this year: 0
11/91Percentage change, since 1980, in the average amount of tax an American pays to the federal government: 0
Percentage change, since 1980, in the average amount of tax an American pays to state and local governments: +9
4/91Amount the federal government spent last year on the savings and loan bailout, per hour: $7,420,000
5/91Percentage change in federal funding for energy conservation proposed by President Bush this year: -36
6/91Number of U.S. law firms the federal government is suing for “violating their duties” to S&Ls they represented: 45
8/91Federal funds the National Cancer Institute will spend this year interviewing Latin American tribal healers: $100,000
5/93Amount the federal government spent each day last year on “intelligence”: $79,000,000
10/94Number of years Bob Dole’s health insurance has been paid for by the federal government: 39
12/94Chances that an American believes the federal government should take “primary responsibility” for eliminating poverty: 1 in 3
Chances that an American in 1964 believed the government had a responsibility to eliminate poverty: 3 in 4
12/94Rank of the local, state, and federal governments among the top three employers in Indianapolis: 1,2,3
4/94Value of the federal government’s stockpile of “medicinal” opium and morphine: $21,800,000
4/94Amount the federal government spent on pickle research last year: $277,000
11/95Federal funds budgeted through 1999 to assist US. phone companies in making their lines easier to tap: $500,000,000
11/95Federal funds spent on maintaining nuclear testing operations since U.S. testing was halted in 1992: $1,185,600,000
2/95Percentage of Americans who believe that George Washington would be disappointed in the federal government today: 86
3/95Amount the federal government will spend this year on “Star Wars,” now called Ballistic Missile Defense: $2,800,000,000
4/95Change since last year in federal funds budgeted for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: +$19,675,000
5/95Average amount the federal government spends each day on paid informants: $266,000
Percentage change in the number employed by the federal government: +5
8/95Number of Susan B. Anthony dollars held by the federal government: 291,000,000
Cost of storing them, per year: $30,000
10/96Units of public housing the federal government plans to demolish by the year 2000: 100,920
Units it plans to construct by then: 24,679
11/96Ratio of the amount the federal government spent last year on Americans under 18 to those over 65: 1:5
7/96Percentage by which federal funding of legal services for the poor was cut last April: 30
3/97Federal funds spent since last October to gild Newt Gingrich’s office ceiling, gold excluded: $40,400
10/98Hours it took two men last July to win a contest to decode the federal government’s data-scrambling system: 56
9/98Estimated amount Americans spent on marijuana last year, according to the federal government: $7,000,000,000
Minimum amount federal, state, and local governments spent combatting marijuana, according to NORML: $7,500,000,000
11/99Estimated portion of annual spending on the treatment of gunshot wounds that comes from the federal government: 1/2
11/01Amount spent last year on company credit cards issued to federal government employees: $17,300,000,000
7/01Percentage of Americans who would allow “churches and other houses of worship” to seek federal funds for charitable work: 75
8/01Federal funds budgeted this year for cleanup of the Defense Department’s hazardous waste: $7,460,000,000
9/01Amount the federal government paid Harvard researchers in the 1990s to help design Russian market reforms: $40,000,000
1/02Last year in which Americans’ confidence in the federal government “to do what is right” was as high as it is today: 1968
6/02Factor by which the Bush Administration’s budget proposal in February increased federal funding to fight bioterrorism: 4
2/03Percentage change since fall 2000 in the number of documents classified by the federal government: +44
5/04Federal funds given last September to a group organizing the recall of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez: $53,400
4/06Chance that an American believes his or her phone has been tapped by the federal government: 1 in 5
6/08Percentage change since last year in the number of people receiving assistance from U.S. food banks: +20
Percentage change since then in the amount of food that the federal government has donated to the banks: –9
1/09Days since the federal government first placed the nation under an “elevated terror alert” that the level has been relaxed: 0
1/09Months, beginning in 2001, that the federal government’s online condom fact sheet disappeared from its website: 17
1/09Number of the five directors of the No Child Left Behind reading program with financial ties to a curriculum they developed: 4
Amount by which the federal government has underfunded its estimated cost to implement NCLB: $71,000,000,000
2/09Profit that the federal government made in 1983 on stock obtained in its 1979 bailout of Chrysler: $311,000,000