Earlier this week, the Senate passed an amendment to the unemployment extenders bill that would require the Secretary of the Senate to post information related to the debt effect of each bill that passes the Senate. The vote was 100-0. Unaminous votes are pretty rare in the Senate. This one highlights both the significance that the debt is playing in lawmaker's minds and the general support for transparency as an idea in Congress.

The bill itself has some issues, which I'll address here.

First, what does the amendment do? This is the legislative language (which, unlike most legislative language, is pretty straightforward):

(a) In General.--The Secretary of the Senate shall post prominently on the front page of the public website of the Senate (http://www.senate.gov/) the following information:

(1) The total amount of discretionary and direct spending passed by the Senate that has not been paid for, including emergency designated spending or spending otherwise exempted from PAYGO requirements.

(2) The total amount of net spending authorized in legislation passed by the Senate, as scored by CBO.

(3) The number of new government programs created in legislation passed by the Senate.

(4) The totals for paragraphs (1) through (3) as passed by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by the President.

(b) Display.--The information tallies required by subsection (a) shall be itemized by bill and date, updated weekly, and archived by calendar year.

(c) Effective Date.--The PAYGO tally required by subsection (a)(1) shall begin with the date of enactment of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 and the authorization tally required by subsection (a)(2) shall apply to all legislation passed beginning January 1, 2010.

Okay, now the criticism:

1) The items that are to be disclosed in (a)(2) and (a)(3) are either not specific or only tell one side of the coin. For example, the net spending in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), is $871 billion from 2010-2019. However, the net cost is listed at $614 billion from 2010-2019. Furthermore, the CBO projects that the bill would result in a net reduction in deficits of $132 billion from 2010-2019. So, the CBO projects that the bill will reduce the deficit, but this amendment would only disclose the "total amount of net spending." That seems a bit like cherry-picking if you ask me. Same goes for disclosing new government programs created in a bill. First, the amendment does not define a government program. Definition is really important in disclosure legislation. Second, what if a bill reduces the number of government programs? Why would we not want to disclose that?

2) Is there a database for this? It doesn't look like it. And why is it updated weekly instead of in real-time? Also, why not post the deficit impact of legislation before it is passed by the Senate or both chambers? Posting information on legislation prior to enactment or passage would probably help achieve the transparency bill's goal of making it more difficult for lawmaker's to approve deficit spending.

3) The whole thing seems like a piecemeal effort. What the government really needs is something like the Budget.gov web site that my colleague Daniel Schuman discussed in this post. Additionally, Congress should give citizens access to all the same legislative resources that Congress is provided through the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Legislative Information Service (LIS).

I'm all in favor of more transparency around the budget, the deficit and the debt. Rather than an ad hoc requirement placed on the Secretary of the Senate, there may be a more broad and sustained approach to budgetary and deficit transparency that could be more informative to the public's needs.

Earlier this week, Sen. Tom Coburn and a group of Republican senators sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid stating that certain provisions in the health care reform bill violated disclosure requirements created in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. Here's a snippet of the letter (Full letter):

"It is clear that the Manager’s Amendment, in addition to the underlying bill, includes specific provisions which benefit some states and not others. We therefore ask you, as the sponsor of the Manager’s Amendment and underlying bill, to provide a list of all earmarks and congressional directed spending as required by The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007.”

This is a bit perplexing for a couple of reasons. First, the letter does not provide a list of the provisions that may be in violation of disclosure requirements. In the past, Coburn has been excellent at naming and providing lists of earmarks and other questionable provisions in bills, so this strikes me as a bit odd. Second, and most important, the provisions that I can only assume that Coburn is referring to would not fall under the disclosure requirements laid out in the 2007 ethics law. The provisions most likely being referred to are the Louisiana Medicaid deal made by Sen. Mary Landrieu and the Nebraska Medicaid deal made by Sen. Ben Nelson. Increases or changes in Medicaid or Medicare spending are not "directed spending items" as defined by the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act and would not be subject to disclosure requirements. Here's the relevant legislative language:

5 "(a) the term 'congressionally directed spending item' means a provision or report language included primarily at the request of a Senator providing, authorizing, or recommending a specific amount of discretionary budget authority, credit authority, or other spending authority for a contract, loan, loan guarantee, grant, loan authority, or other expenditure with or to an entity, or targeted to a specific State, locality or Congressional district, other than through a statutory or administrative formula-driven or competitive process"

Emphasis added. Medicaid and Medicare funding are statutory and administrative formula-driven processes and thus the disclosure requirement does not apply.

Now there could very well be other items in the Senate manager's amendment to the health care bill that would be subject to these disclosure requirements. I don't know. It would be useful to see Coburn's list of "over a half dozen" such provisions to gauge whether they should be subject to the relevant disclosure requirements. Furthermore, if Coburn believes that the requirements under the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act do not go far enough in requiring the disclosure of spending targeted towards the interests of particular members it would be interesting and useful to see statutory or rules changes that he thinks are appropriate. That's a conversation I'd like to have.

The Senate is going to follow the House in posting their office expenditure reports online for the public to view. Yesterday, Sen. Tom Coburn offered an amendment to the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act requiring the Secretary of the Senate to post all expenditure reports online.

Coburn's amendment has elements that are both better and worse than the House's efforts to disclose office expenditures. The better is a lot better: reports will be posted in a searchable, itemized format. (The House plans to only post PDFs.) Unfortunately, we won't get to see those reports until the 2011. Coburn's amendment delays disclosure, likely for the Secretary of the Senate to build infrastructure for disclosure, until the start of the 112th Congress, or 2011. The House will begin disclosing later this year.

Below is the language of the amendment:

SEC. __X. REPORTING REQUIREMENT.

Section 105(a) of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act 1965 (Public Law 88-454; 2 U.S.C. 104a) is amended--

(1) in the last sentence of paragraph (1), by striking shall'' and insertingmay''; and

(2) by adding at the end the following:

``(6) Beginning with the report covering the first full semiannual period of the 112th Congress, the Secretary of the Senate--

``(1) shall publicly post on-line on the website of the Senate each report in a searchable, itemized format as required under this section;

``(2) shall issue each report required under this section in electronic form; and

``(3) may issue each report required under this section in other forms at the discretion of the Secretary of the Senate.''.

Earlier this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that lawmaker office expenses would be placed online at the earliest possible time. According to House Chief Administrative Officer Dan Beard, that earliest date will likely be August 31. Beard, according to the Wall Street Journal, also stated intentions to make the disclosure more accessible in the future, "Electronic versions of the ink-and-paper reports will initially be posted in PDF format. The House "is examining ways" to enhance the ability to search the documents when it rolls out a new internal financial-processing system during the 112th Congress."

While this policy applies only to the House, the Senate may be pushed into taking action as well. The Journal is also reporting that Sen. Tom Coburn will introduce a bill to require the online disclosure of Senate office expenses. Majority Leader Harry Reid's office states that they will look at the issue:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) said Wednesday he would introduce a bill requiring the expense records be posted online in the Senate, as well. Such disclosures are "something that we will take a look at," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.).

Yesterday, Earl Devany, Inspector General for the stimulus, and Rob Nabors, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), went before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs to discuss details of their oversight plan for recovery funds. One of the chief topics was the web site, Recovery.gov. The White House has sold Recovery.gov as a beacon of transparency, a web site a top a hill that will shine down as an example for all government web sites. However, as our Bill Allison has noted in numerous venues, the web site does not offer all of the information or content that it could. This lack of content became a sticking point in the hearing.

Devaney, who answered most of the questions, agreed with many of the senators who complained that Recovery.gov was not all it was cracked up to be. Describing why citizens are going to the web site, which is receiving high traffic, Devaney chalked it up to "curiosity," but stated that if the web site does not become more interactive and substantive, the public will lose faith in the recovery effort. This applies particularly to interactivity and responses to user comments, Devaney stated, and that the recovery oversight board needed to get out in front of this faster.

In achieving the goal of interactivity, Devaney said that he is talking to outside groups and individuals who have ideas about how to sort through millions of comments and respond appropriately. He also stated that he is willing to meet with any of "the smartest people" to talk about this.

Sen. Tom Coburn raised pointed questions regarding the accessibility of the data, contrasting the data search functions and presentation on Recovery.gov to that of USASpending.gov, the federal site tracking all federal spending. Coburn's biggest issues were the lack of multiple search capabilities on Recovery.gov and why USASpending.gov wasn't used to display the recovery spending. Nabors responded that the public has a unique interest in the recovery spending and that the information needed to be brought to the public in a speedier fashion than USASpending.gov could deliver. The idea behind Recovery.gov is to provide real time tracking of recovery spending. In his "wildest dreams," Nabors declared, he would want to be able to track overall spending, as in what is displayed on USASpending.gov, in real time.

Coburn pointedly asked when the "ideal" Recovery.gov would be online. Devaney, under pressure from Coburn, answered, "Yes," after Coburn asked him if the site would be complete in a year.

One of the more interesting suggestions came from Sen. Claire McCaskill, asking Devaney if he had considered hiring unemployed journalists to provide investigative capability along with context and storytelling to Recovery.gov. Devaney, in what seemed like a happy surprise to McCaskill, stated that he had two interviews scheduled with journalists the very next day. McCaskill responded, "Great minds think alike."

Gautham Nagesh, writing at NextGov, reports on how USASpending.gov is failing to provide up-to-date information on government contracts and grants.

The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 mandated that OMB develop and maintain a site providing grant and contract information on all organizations receiving more than $25,000 from the feds. (Modeled after OMB Watch's FedSpending.org, the site launched last December.) Nagesh reports that some agencies, including the Homeland Security, Labor, Transportation and Veterans Affairs departments have not updated their reports since last year. The agencies are supposed to issue a report monthly outlining who receives the funds and the amount of grants. Sen. Tom Coburn, one of the sponsors of the new law, has rightly called out the agencies for not adhering to the new requirements.

OMB says that the problem is caused by "glitches in the data provided to OMB," not a scofflaw attitude on the part of the agencies. OMB receives the data in a form that requires the office to reformat it. Nagesh quotes Adam Hughes, director of federal fiscal policy at OMB Watch, as saying his organization has cut OMB some slack since the agency "has demonstrated consistent progress in overcoming the challenges the site faces." Hughes also said that much of these problems were expected. In June, Coburn and Sen. Obama and other sponsors of the original law introduced the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008, which is meant to improve some of the problems. The bill "would require agencies to submit requests for proposals and contract information for posting on USASpending.gov to the site, allowing citizens to compare what the government asked for to what it purchased," Nagesh writes. It would also require the site to record "performance data on the contract and disclose additional information on the entities that receive federal awards." The bill also calls for a better search capability and require data be offered in XML or other  "machine-readable format." The bill will require that agencies show that entities granted awards or contracts don't owe taxes. The great promise of the site is that it will give the public a much better way to follow how the federal government operates. Even though that promise is yet unfulfilled, we have great hope that the new legislation will fix the problems and give us a way to track how our government spends our tax dollars.