Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Stimulus Analysis Goes Online
Washington promises detailed data on the $787 billion in spending, tax cuts
By David Talbot
Barack Obama came to office promising to "use cutting-edge
technologies to create a new level of transparency, accountability, and
participation" in government. Now, that pledge is about to get its first
real test.
The
administration has just launched a website to explain the details of
the $787 billion stimulus package that Obama signed into law yesterday. Right
now the site lays out the package of tax cuts and spending in broad-brush
terms. But it promises to eventually provide maps, charts, graphics--and raw
data in exportable form--to show which states, Congressional districts, and even
contractors are receiving the money.
This
would be a first-of-a-kind technology effort by the federal government. The
body overseeing these data dumps will be the Recovery Accountability and
Transparency Board, a panel of government inspectors that will be created as
part of the stimulus law.
"Instead
of politicians doling out money behind closed doors, the important decisions
about where taxpayer dollars are invested will be yours to scrutinize,"
Obama pledges in a You
Tube video posted on the site.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
RD
02/19/2009
Posts:114
Where was this concern for transparency when the Bush Crime family was running the whole planet into the ground? Where are the cries for a full accounting of the TARP money or 2+ trillion doled out by the FED? Where was the concern when billions disappeared in Iraq?
jmaximus9
02/21/2009
Posts:83