Methods · September 12, 2026

Keep unlike things separate.

Program Receipts follows a limited question: what did a program commit to, what changed, what was funded, and what result does the public evidence actually support? It does not compress that record into a success/failure score or a supposed total of wasted money.

Source hierarchy and attribution

We start with official acquisition reports, budget exhibits, contract announcements and oversight assessments. Agency announcements establish what the agency reported; contractor statements establish what that company reported. Neither is automatically an independent assessment of performance. GAO and DOT&E provide oversight and test perspectives, with their own dates, scope and limits.

Each program includes a source appendix with an exact publisher URL and a page, table, section or paragraph locator. Where available, the machine-readable register preserves a primary-document receipt hash and retrieval metadata. A hash identifies a retrieved version; it is not proof a claim is true. Failed web responses are not represented as the source document.

Original publisher links may be blocked, moved or return errors. When a fresh direct recheck failed but a previously retrieved primary receipt or official browser retrieval was used, the source note says so. We do not imply that every cited page was freshly downloadable or that every current public record was discovered.

Dates have jobs

• Original baseline: the first documented commitment used in the comparison.
• Revised baseline: an approved replacement reference point. It does not delete the original.
• Objective / threshold: separate targets or allowed bounds as the source defines them.
• Forecast: an estimate of a future event. A past forecast date does not become an actual automatically.
• Actual: a dated reported occurrence, within its stated scope.
• Document date / event date / retrieval date: three different things. HTTP Last-Modified is not a proven publication date.
• Evidence cutoff: the boundary of this research edition, not a claim that every figure describes that day.

Calendar-month differences use calendar months, not invented day precision. Conflicting dates are disclosed or narrowed to the supported common precision. A proposed rebaseline is not promoted to an approved one.

Money keeps its type

• Request: proposed budget authority, not enacted funding.
• Enacted / appropriated: the funding position reported after legislative action, not proof of full obligation or expenditure.
• Spending plan: an allocation presentation with source-specific scope.
• Obligation: a reported government commitment. It is not an outlay.
• Outlay / expenditure: disbursement or execution under the source’s definition. A source summary is not necessarily a reconciled cash ledger.
• Contract action / ceiling: an award’s value or upper bound. Either can differ from funds obligated at award.
• Acquisition estimate: a program cost estimate across a defined scope and time period, distinct from sustainment and from actual spending.

Comparisons retain fiscal year, account, program scope, units and price basis. Constant-dollar estimates are compared only on the same base-year basis. Then-year values are not directly substituted for constant-dollar values. Shared budget lines are not wholly attributed to one system without support. Award aggregates are not added to overlapping contract actions.

Results need a definition

Production permission, manufacture, first flight, acceptance, delivery, deployment clearance, initial operational capability, completed operational testing and demonstrated effectiveness are different observations. A successful mission does not certify every requirement; unresolved deficiencies do not erase documented useful missions.

Delivery totals retain their date and fleet boundary. Readiness measures retain their denominator and reporting rule. Missing/withheld inventory remains unknown, not zero. A changed quantity or reporting rule is explained before a comparison is used.

Review, access and independence

Each edition includes completed source/data and rendered-page review. Automated checks help find arithmetic, reference and interface errors; they are not independent human audits or comprehensive accessibility certification. All report text, tables, timelines and citations are available without JavaScript. Optional controls only filter already-present material; print restores the full timeline.

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Program Receipts is free and independent, not an official government or contractor product. Editions change through deliberate reviewed updates; no live monitoring, daily refresh or recurring publication commitment is implied. See the corrections policy.