Citizen Audit — Follow the Money

A free, open-source civic transparency web app that makes U.S. government spending understandable to everyone.

Live site: https://phil08533.github.io/CitizenAudit/

Features

• Tax Estimator — Enter your income, filing status, and dependents to see a personalized breakdown of where your federal taxes go
• Spending Explorer — Browse all federal agencies, their budgets, and major contracts with search and filtering
• Agency Detail Pages — In-depth view with budget history charts and contract data
• Representative Lookup — Find your senators and House member by ZIP code (live API or demo mode)
• Contact Action Center — Pre-written email templates for reaching your elected officials
• Dark/Light Mode — System-aware theme with manual toggle
• 100% Static — No server, no database, no login required

Tech Stack

Tool	Purpose
React 19 + TypeScript	UI framework
Vite	Build tool & dev server
TailwindCSS v4	Styling
Recharts	Charts & data visualization
Framer Motion	Animations
React Router v7	Client-side routing
Lucide React	Icons

Data Sources

All data comes from official U.S. government sources:

• USASpending.gov API — Agency spending, contracts
• Fiscal Data Treasury — National debt, interest payments
• OMB Budget — Budget category allocations
• IRS 2024 Tax Brackets — Tax calculations
• Google Civic Information API — Representative lookup

Local Development

npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173/CitizenAudit/

Build & Deploy to GitHub Pages

1. Build

npm run build

This outputs a static site to dist/.

2. GitHub Pages Setup

1. Push this repo to GitHub
2. Go to Settings → Pages
3. Under Source, select GitHub Actions
4. The included .github/workflows/deploy.yml will automatically build and deploy on every push to main

Your site will be live at https://<your-username>.github.io/CitizenAudit/

3. (Optional) Google Civic API

For live representative lookups, create a .env.local file:

VITE_GOOGLE_CIVIC_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

Get a free key at: https://developers.google.com/civic-information

Without a key, the app shows demo representative data.

Project Structure

src/
├── components/
│   ├── layout/      # Navbar, Footer
│   ├── charts/      # Pie, Bar, Area charts
│   ├── cards/       # AgencyCard, RepresentativeCard
│   ├── ui/          # StatCard, SearchFilter, LoadingSkeleton
│   └── forms/       # TaxCalculator
├── pages/           # All 8 pages
├── services/        # API integration layer
├── data/            # Static JSON mock data
├── hooks/           # useTheme, useLocalStorage
├── types/           # TypeScript interfaces
└── utils/           # Tax calculator, formatters

License

MIT — Free to use, fork, and improve.