It's not just the Open Secrets that's going open data. Our Political Party Time project is making its raw data available too. Find out some of the places where contributors in Open Secrets data rub elbows with members of Congress!
Continue reading
CRP: PMA Group, clients donated to 516 members of Congress
Lindsay Renick Mayer of the Center for Responsive Politics writes on OpenSecrets.org about PMA Group, the lobbying firm that specialized in defense appropriations and that is reportedly under investigation for campaign finance irregularities:
No matter how we slice and dice the data related to contributions from embattled lobbying firm PMA Group and its clients, Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.), chair of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, remains at or near the top of the recipient list, along with Reps. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.). This week, though, we took yet another look at the contributions from the firm ...Continue reading
Making the bailout more transparent
It's old news -- several trillion dollars ago -- but back in 2008 the Federal Reserve, Treasury and the FDIC started working in tandem on a series of measures to stabilize the financial system. The Federal Reserve's aid is doled our or loaned out in secrecy, despite the dogged attempts of Bloomberg News to pry loose the data; the FDIC has released some, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by our colleagues at SubsidyScope.com.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Banks participating in FDIC's Transaction Guarantee Account Option"]
[/caption]
You can download data in ...
Continue readingInouye, Obey Promise Earmark Reforms
Roll Call is reporting that Rep. David Obey and Sen. Daniel Inouye, the chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations... View Article
Continue readingTCS releases searchable earmark lists
While most of Washington fixates on the $700 billion bailout package now being debated by the House Finance and Senate Banking Committees (Rep. Frank has added his own version of a bailout to the ones proposed by the administration and Sen. Christopher Dodd), our friends at Taxpayers for Common Sense are paying attention to some $600 billion in spending that Rep. David Obey, D-Ohio, concocted in secret, or, as he put it to Bloomberg News, operating "the old fashioned way by brokering agreements in order to get things done and I make no apology for it." Taxpayers has posted searchable ...
Continue readingTCS centralizes earmark data
Our friends at Taxpayers for Common Sense have collected, in one handy spot, all of their Fiscal 2009 earmark data and trenchant analyses of same. So far, the Senate (which has much laxer earmark disclosure rules) has passed more bills than the House -- we saw the same pattern last year as well, though traditionally the House had run ahead of the Senate. All the files are available as downloadable spread sheets.
Continue readingMark Warner top recipient of individual lobbyist contributions
While there’s much room for improvement, the 110th Congress has made a stab at providing a few rays of Sunlight... View Article
Continue readingTCS releases Senate Transportaion & HUD earmark database
Our friends at Taxpayers for Common Sense have analyzed, and compiled in a downloadable database available at the link, the earmarks from S. 3261, the Senate Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. They note,
The FY09 Senate appropriations bill providing money for transportation and Housing and Urban Development projects contains 609 earmarks worth more than $954 million (click here for the database). This represents a cut of more than one-quarter in the value of earmarks from the Senate-passed bill for FY08 and a significant reduction in the overall number of earmarks. The FY08 Senate bill contained 822 earmarks ...Continue reading
TCS makes Milcon letters available
Last Friday, Taxpayers for Common Sense updates us on where the House is on the Appropriations process (a few weeks back the process could best be described as "nyah nyah nyah," and "I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you,", to use the parliamentary terms favored by most members of Congress).
In that update, they posted a link to their downloadable database of earmarks from the House version of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill, they've also put the request letters online.
(This is what happens when you ...
Continue reading
59063
