Gao Red Book
gao_red_bookFind the chapter of GAO's Principles of Federal Appropriations Law — the Red Book — that governs a federal appropriations, fiscal-law or government-funding question, described in plain words. Answers questions about what an appropriation may lawfully be spent on (the purpose statute and the necessary expense rule), how long it stays available (the bona fide needs rule, expired and cancelled accounts, no-year and multi-year money), how much may be obligated (the Antideficiency Act, augmentation, miscellaneous receipts, apportionment), recording valid obligations, continuing resolutions and funding lapses, accountable-officer liability and relief, grants and cooperative agreements, guaranteed and insured loans, acquisition, real property, and claims for and against the government. Returns the ranked chapters together with the full table of contents, each row naming which EDITION it comes from: GAO publishes the Red Book chapter by chapter, so the current treatise is a mix of Fourth and Third Edition chapters and this reads that composition live from GAO on every call. Every row carries the chapter PDF, its source_last_modified and age_days. This is official interpretation by the agency that decides federal appropriations law, not statute — pair it with uscode or cfr text for the underlying provision.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| topic | No | The fiscal-law topic or question in plain words, e.g. "can we pay for food at a conference", "bona fide needs rule", "Antideficiency Act violation", "obligating funds under a continuing resolution". | |
| chapter | No | Return one specific Red Book chapter number (1-15) instead of ranking by topic. | |
| include_scope_text | No | Fetch GAO's own scope summary for the Fourth Edition chapters from their product pages (3 extra parallel requests). Default true. |