CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE….It’s long annoyed me that reports from the Congressional Research Service aren’t available to the public. After all, $100 million per year of our tax dollars funds their work.
Today, though, I learned about Open CRS, an effort to collect CRS reports and put them in a single searchable archive on the web. So far they’ve collected 8,223 CRS reports on subjects ranging from CAFTA to random drug testing.
This is a great resource for policy wonks of all stripes. CRS reports are commissioned by congressmen on a wide variety of topics, they’re generally nonpartisan and reliable, and most of them run 5-10 pages, which makes them terrific introductions to complex issues. Someday Congress may decide that CRS itself should collect and index all their reports online, but until they do Open CRS is the best we’ve got. Highly recommended.
