Matt Drudge has linked a dozen or so examples of what look to be wasteful spending in the stimulus--$2,531,600 for 'HAM, WATER ADDED, COOKED, FROZEN, SLICED, 2-LB', $1,191,200 for '2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED' (I linked that one immediately below), $351,807 for 'REPLACE AND UPGRADE THE DUMBWAITER, $1,562,568 for 'MOZZARELLA CHEESE'... and so on. In response, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture posted the following clarifying information:
The references to "2 pound frozen ham sliced" are to the sizes of the packaging. Press reports suggesting that the Recovery Act spent $1.191 ...Continue reading
Guess What? It’s Working.
After one week of markups on the health care reform bill, we are already seeing that pressure on Congress does... View Article
Continue readingRecovery.gov Description FAIL
As is now showing up all over the social web and news reports, the site Recovery.gov – which was set... View Article
Continue readingSenate Finance to Take Up Health Care; See Their Lobbyist Connections
According to First Read, Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus will announce his plans for health care reform sometime this week.... View Article
Continue readingTransparency is the New Objectivity
From the super smart David Weinberger. Reposted in full: Transparency is the new objectivity Posted on July 19th, 2009 A... View Article
Continue readingStimulus Funds Premium Pork?
I'm assuming that either there's an error somewhere, or this is really, really good ham. From Recovery.gov's new recipient data comes this contract, which if I'm reading it right, spends $1,191,200 for "2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED."
That seems like an awful lot for ham--even sliced ham. Just a hunch, but they're probably buying tens and tens of thousands of 2 pound frozen hams sliced, but of course that's not apparent from the linked entry.
I just got done writing up some cautionary tales about why one can never take federal ...
Continue readingVA projects suspended after IT Dashboard ratings
Forty-five troubled Veterans Affairs Department projects have been suspended as a result of the Office of Management and the Budget's IT Dashboard. The newly launched Web site collects data on technology contracts as reported by agencies and provides it to the public along with visualizations, such as red bars indicating late or over-cost products, to aid officials and citizens in spotting wasteful spending and contract abuse.
Some projects' ratings were so bad that as VA administrators were preparing the metrics for the OMB, they spotted the projects and suspended them before they ever appeared as red flags on the IT Dashboard site. One project was 17 months behind schedule.
Government watchdogs were pleased that the IT Dashboard project has already led to real instances of accountability, though the fact that the problematic VA contracts were spotted only when statistics were required by another agency suggested a lack of contract oversight at some agencies.
But the IT Dashboard shows that many more contracts with abysmal ratings are still in place.
Continue readingHouse Health Care Markups
This is a quick update on what the committees in the House have done with the health care bill since... View Article
Continue readingThis Week in Transparency – July 17, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies from the week:... View Article
Continue readingSenators Call for Health Care Delay, Receive Big Campaign Contributions
Six senators called for a seventy day hold on voting on health care reform legislation today, according to the Huffington... View Article
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