For an overview of the legislative process see How Our Laws are Made and Enactment of a Law, by the Parlimentarians of the House and Senate, respectively. There is also a great video made by Congress.gov about the legislative process.
The way a bill becomes law can be complicated because there can be many versions of the same bill. Here is an overview.
The U.S. Code is the official record of active, public laws in the country. It is arranged by subject into 50 "titles." Public Laws are often broken up into the appropriate title of the Code and citations are provided to the Public Law and the Statutes at Large (where legislative histories can be found).
Finding laws can sometimes be difficult if the name by which the law is popularly known differs from its official name. The links below allow one to search by the popular name in order to determine the actual name.
Senate:
U.S. House of Representatives
An independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress. Often called the 'congressional watchdog,' GAO investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars." Source: About GAO
GAO makes many of its reports public.
Users can browse by date, agency, or topic; or run a search
Click on the tabs at the top for Reports and Testimonies or Legal Decisions
CBO's mandate is to provide the Congress with objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on the wide array of programs covered by the federal budget and the information and estimates required for the Congressional budget process. For more information see the CBO Factsheet.
