by Jacob Hutt, Policy Intern The government’s point person for Recovery Act transparency and accountability called for an online “universal... View Article
Continue readingIntroducing Recovery Explorer
More than a year has passed since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Federal agencies have been distributing some $787 billion appropriated by the act to jump start the economy. According to Recovery.gov, the Web site that tracks spending under the act, about 40 percent of that money has been spent, sent around the country in the form of contracts, grants, loans, tax benefits and entitlements.
The huge spending bill included funds for a mechanism to track spending under the bill, but getting a sense of which agencies have awarded the most money, or which ...
Open Data We’re Thankful For
While this is a little late-- late's better than never for giving thanks. And this year, we've got a lot to be thankful for. Open Data in Open Government is making leaps and strides. The Vice President is talking data quality in government on the Daily Show. ABC News along with Recovery.gov's controversy have brought government data into prime time. It's been a long time since transparency like this has seen this kind of attention.
At this time of Thanksgiving here in the United States I wanted to give thanks for the new and changing government datasets that we have now. Some are truly amazing.
Continue readingStimulus Leads to Better State Level Reporting
NextGov reports on positive side-effects of the stimulus’ disclosure and transparency provisions: Technology that states have deployed to report how... View Article
Continue readingLocal Spotlight
The creation of jobs is a main part of the stimulus legislation. Seeing how many jobs were created and maintained... View Article
Continue readingRecovery.gov recipient data just in
Recovery.gov posted information today showing that 30,383 jobs have been created or saved by the federal contracts that have been awarded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. So far, $16 billion has been disbursed by 9,100 contracts. The federal government is spending more than $525,000 spent on every job they saved or created.
The release covers just a sliver of stimulus spending: Most recovery money is in the form of grants and loans to the states; data from that spending--including recipient and jobs data--will be available at the end of October. So far, federal contracts ...
Continue readingGrading the New Recovery.gov
Recovery.gov relaunched yesterday, and we've spent some time playing around with the site since then. The verdict? Well, it's hard to say — the site's a bit broken. There are 404s all over the place, most gallingly on the data download page. Parts of the site seem like they work, but don't: the select boxes on the front page that provide filters for the map don't actually affect its behavior in any way. It's hard to see these glaring bugs alongside the totally-unnecessary link to Facebook and not groan (am I supposed to play Scrabble with Chairman Devaney?).
Continue readingAgencies Not Reporting Stimulus Lobbying Contacts
Lobbyists are in midst of a bonanza in Washington. With the Obama administration pursuing so many goals at once, the... View Article
Continue readingWhat am I reading today?
The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) reviewed all 50 state formulas for disclosing stimulus contracts and found that New Hampshire... View Article
Continue readingNew Data from Recovery.gov
The office of Vice President Joe Biden sent out a statement with links to new Recovery maps:
The new map detailing how states are putting Recovery Act funds to work can be viewed here. The state map shows the amount of money that the Recovery Act has provided for each state (announced), the amount each state is putting to work (obligated) and the amount actually paid out (outlays). Visitors can click on a given state to view the spending in more detail.The new series of maps detailing how Recovery Act funds are moving out to contractors, grantees and loan ...
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