Treasury’s mission is as a steward of the U.S. economy and financial systems. It is not a scientific research agency, either directly or indirectly. However, GSS principals can be applied to several of the support activities that enable Treasury to maintain a strong economy and create economic and job opportunities. By applying GSS tenets, Treasury may be better able to promote the conditions that enable economic growth and stability at home and abroad, strengthen national security, protecting the integrity of the financial system, and manage the U.S. Government’s finances and resources effectively.
Policy Analysis
In furthering its mission of ensuring economic and financial stability, Treasury routinely uses economic, tax, and financial analyses and research to inform and guide principals as to the likely impacts, tradeoffs, and effectiveness of potential policy proposals and developments in the economy and financial sector. Staff in various offices—including, but not limited to, the Office of Economic Policy, Office of Tax Policy, and Office of Financial Research—pursue different lines of inquiry in support of principals.
Treasury is a department that works in a quickly changing economic and financial environment, and the feasibility of applying GSS tenets in analysis depends on the timeline. When prompt action is needed, the application of some GSS tenets—such as interdisciplinary collaboration—may be outweighed by the necessity of timeliness. At the same time, accuracy and validity of the models used in analysis must not be sacrificed for timeliness—after all, Treasury’s principals need quality analysis and an accurate assessment of the economic and financial environment to make decisions that best serve the American public. For this type of quick-turn analysis, Treasury offices rely on proven models, validated methodologies, and intraoffice review to provide quality analysis that will best support principals’ needs.
When timeliness is less paramount, longer form policy research and post-hoc analyses can better implement GSS tenets in support of Treasury’s mission. Treasury’s research and research-adjacent offices will seek to implement standards that comply with OSTP’s guidance on EO 14303.
Grant Evaluation
The U.S. Treasury administers many grants and financial assistance programs through formula grants, block grants, loans, direct payments for specified uses, and cooperative agreements. While much of this financial assistance is disbursed by formula, legislation, and regulation, one of Treasury’s grant programs signals how GSS tenets may help guide public policy.
In 2018, Congress passed the Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA)—a landmark law that focuses federal spending on policies that can be proven to work—and assigned Treasury to run the grant program through 2033. Unlike many federal programs that pay for specific benefits or services, this $100 million program is connected to realized outcomes. States and local governments identify social problems they would like to address; an independent evaluator measures whether the goals were achieved; and Treasury only pays if the program delivers results. 1
The SIPPRA statute requires projects to demonstrate that outcomes “have been achieved as a result of the intervention.” The independent evaluator must use rigorous methods that can reliably show a direct link.2 The main goal of the project's independent evaluation is to determine how strongly the project can say that it caused the observed outcomes, and not some other unaccounted for variable.
Some projects use randomized controlled trials (RCTs), which are generally considered to be the most rigorous type of experimental design. In RCTs, a sample is randomly split into two groups – treatment and control. One group will receive the intervention and the other will continue as normal. Because people are randomly assigned to these groups, RCTs help minimize the chance that any differences in outcomes we see are due to other factors, rather than the project itself.
If randomization is not feasible, Treasury has accepted other reliable, evidence-based quasi-experimental designs. These methods compare the outcomes of the group receiving the project to a similar group that did not. While they do not use random assignment, these designs use careful planning and analysis to create a comparison group that is as similar as possible to the project group. When using quasi-experimental designs, grant applicants must clearly detail why randomization is not feasible and show how controls will provide robust evidence that alternative variables—such as who was selected for the project, other policies that were in place, changes in the economy, or other factors—could not explain sufficiently the results of the program. Both RCT and quasi-experimental designs must use statistical significance tests to show that the results are likely due to a causal effect and not chance.
In short, the SIPPRA program seeks to use many of the GSS principles, thereby ensuring that federal grants will achieve beneficial results and yield savings for the federal government. Treasury’s experience with implementing and managing SIPPRA could serve as a guide for future grant programs.
Regulatory Analysis
Another primary stream through which Treasury can implement the Administration’s GSS agenda is through its regulatory and deregulatory efforts to ensure changes in regulations are tailored to minimize unnecessary compliance costs on companies while also ensuring the stability of the financial system.
In July 2025, Congress passed the Genius Act in July 2025, which intends to create a comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins. Treasury is responsible for issuing regulations to implement the Genius Act that encourage financial innovation while also checking illicit finance, protecting consumers, and addressing financial stability risks. Various Treasury offices will support the creation of this regulatory regime through regulatory impact analyses (RIAs). These analyses will use clear assumptions and will detail methodologies so that the regulations can withstand scrutiny. Treasury’s regulatory efforts with respect to the Genius Act—as well as other legislation that will require financial regulation—should result in the correct degree of regulation such that burden of compliance is not onerous and is able to achieve the multiple goals of the specific legislation. Complementary to the regulatory efforts is using analysis to ensure deregulatory efforts are properly targeted to mitigate compliance costs while protecting consumers, the economy, and the financial system.
1 The SIPPRA statute defines the term “State” to mean each State of the United States, the District of Columbia, each commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States, and each federally recognized Indian tribe. See 2 CFR Part 200 for definitions of State, local government, or federally recognized Indian tribe.