It’s not just another day in the nation’s capital. At 11:30 a.m., Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., will throw the switch on a new landmark of government, USASpending.gov. Mandated by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA), which was co-sponsored by Coburn and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., USASpending.gov is a searchable, Googlelike database that puts most federal spending within a few mouse clicks for every American. (Obama won’t be present at today’s activities because he is on the presidential campaign trail.)
Today is a milestone because, as President Bush noted when he signed FFATA into law Sept. 26:”We spend a lot of time and a lot of effort collecting your money, and we should show the same amount of effort in reporting how we spend it. … Taxpayers have a right to know where that money is going, and you have a right to know whether or not you’re getting value for your money.” Taxpayers can know because USASpending.gov brings federal spending into the Internet age. It’s the place to go, for example, if you’re interested in how much the government spent last year on “consultants” or the number of federal contracts given to the company owned by your congressman’s biggest contributor.
Recommended Stories
There are innumerable reasons why the establishment of USASpending.gov is a milestone, but two of them are particularly worthy of mention. First, Coburn and Obama drew little attention when they introduced FFATA and the bill mostly flew under the radar as it progressed in Congress. But when passage became a real possibility, the Old Bulls in Congress — ever jealous of their ability to spend our tax dollars on their pet causes — used every legislative trick in the book trying to stop FFATA. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., even placed secret holds on the measure, stalling it for weeks in the Senate. But they were unmasked by Porkbusters.org, an Internet-based coalition from across the ideological spectrum.
Porkbusters.org sparked thousands of phone calls and e-mails asking senators if they were responsible for the secret holds. Stevens and Byrd soon gave up and within a few weeks Bush signed the bill into law.
Second, it may take a few years before the good effects of USASpending.gov are fully felt, but here’s fair warning to the old-school politicians who thrive on pork-barrel politics: It’s no longer just the dwindling ranks of the mainstream media covering the big spenders. Starting today, legions of citizens and professional watchdogs have access to an unprecedented amount of information and data on where tax dollars are going. Andthey’re all connected via the Internet. The pig roast with tax dollars as the main course is coming to an end.
