When we think of what governments do, we think of everything from building highways to waging war. What they also do is capture the world in the form of information. The US government may be the foremost producer of information in the world.
For decades, federal agencies have gathered data on everything from climate risk to the rising cost of childcare. It is information funded by taxes, and that belongs to the American people. This data is often how the government decides what to do: what is a problem, what is a policy priority, what should be funded. It tells the story of America.
