Jerry Brito asks why pay millions of dollars to defense contractor to build Recovery.gov?

A Maryland-based IT firm that specializes in defense contracts was awarded the federal contract to build Recovery.gov, the government site meant to make stimulus spending transparent. The bill to taxpayers for this website will be $9.5 million over the next six months.

To put that in perspective, consider USASpending.gov, the website created by the Coburn-Obama Act of 2006 that tracks all federal contracts and grants. The government purchased the software for that site for $600,000 from non-profit watchdog OMB Watch, which had developed the software for itself outside of the federal procurement system.

Or consider the many spending transparency websites that state governments have recently created. The most expensive of these is that of Texas, which cost $300,000 to develop. Most states spend less than $100,000 on transparency sites.

One of the most renowned web development firms in the country is 37Signals in Chicago. Their web applications consistently receive accolades for usability and design. With only 14 employees, they manage to put out amazing state-of-the-art sites that outclass anything the federal government has ever produced.

To them, a contract of this size would mean an annual salary of $1.3 million for each employee. Believe me, that's not the market rate.

Of course, 37Signals could not have bid on this contract. It was open only to GSA "Alliant" contract holders--a set of 59 certified federal contractors including Lockheed Martin, BAE, and Booz Allen Hamilton. Needless to say, the best web developers in the country are not in this list.

The silver lining here is that after months of spending, this contract signals movement to finally disclose officially where the money has been going. More importantly, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees Recovery.gov, has promised to make all of the raw spending data available to the public.

If they keep their promise it will mean that third parties including non-profits, newspapers, and open government nerds will be able to create recovery tracking sites of their very own. No one should be surprised if these sites turn out to be better than Recovery.gov -- and at a fraction of the cost.

Jerry Brito is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is the co-creator of StimulusWatch.org.