The farm bill has produced plenty of cost overruns and not much savings.

A week into President Donald Trump’s term, it’s easy to focus all of our attention on his pronouncements and policies, and forget that Congress holds the keys to so many parts of the castle, particularly when it comes to money. So while we all should be paying attention to what Trump says and does, it is equally important to pay attention to what Congress says, does and has done.

With the news this week from the Congressional Budget Office, we can see that Congress has already fallen short on many of its fiscal promises. Case in point: the sad tale of the sweet whisperings of deficit reduction espoused by backers of the 2014 farm bill.

First, some background: On Tuesday the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan legislative agency tasked with calculating the official costs and benefits of legislation, released its updated “Budget and Economic Outlook: 2017-2027”. In this semiannual report, our fellow budget nerds spell out anticipated spending, economic growth, public debt and other economic indicators that will occur under current law.

In addition to the projections of spending, the updated baseline gives you one number that’s a concrete fact: The actual spending for the previous fiscal year. That money is gone. No legislation or executive order is going to increase or decrease that number.