There were few bright spots on the spending front when the Republicans last controlled both chambers of Congress. Brightest among the few was the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act that was co-sponsored by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., and signed into law by President George W. Bush in September 2006. The bill mandated establishment of USASpending.gov, a “Google-like, searchable database” that would put most federal spending within a few mouse clicks for any citizen with Internet access. The law represented, along with the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the Electronic Freedom of Information Act of 1996, a milestone in the long-running, bipartisan effort to show the public how the government was conducting its business. But now there is an effort afoot in Congress to gut funding for the E-Government budget, which includes USASpending.gov, from $34 million to $2 million. If the effort succeeds, the future of the USAS pending.gov website — and the progress it represents in expanding government transparency and accountability — will be very much in doubt. The E-Government Fund was also established by Bush and the Republican Congress, in 2002, but was expanded more recently by President Obama to support a number of related electronic projects that would help bring government into the digital age and make it easier for ordinary people to find out what elected officials are up to and how their tax dollars are being spent. Among these are Data.gov, a site that helps citizens gain access to the thousands of databases compiled and maintained by federal departments and agencies, and an initiative designed to determine the value of cloud computing in government applications.
The measure slashing the E-Government Fund’s budget was contained in the 2011 budget approved by the House in February. The Senate never adopted it, which is why we now have a series of patchwork continuing resolutions that merely kick the can down the road. But sooner or later, Congress and Obama are going to have to agree on some sort of funding deal to complete 2011, as well as the regular budget process that will, heaven willing, produce a complete 2012 budget. The fear of transparency advocates, conservatives and liberals alike, is that either or both of those longer-term spending deals will include gutting the E-Government Fund that was in the House-approved measure in February.
With a 2011 federal deficit in excess of $1.3 trillion, Speaker John Boehner and other GOP House leaders would inflict incalculable injury to their efforts to restore public trust in government if they were to strip bare the E-Government Fund budget.
