Perhaps the most significant reform of 2006 was passage of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. The Examiner was among the most vigorous supporters of this legislation that directs theU.S. Office of Management and Budget to establish a public, searchable, Google-like database of federal spending.

Coburn-Obama became law despite opposition from entrenched Old Bulls in the U.S. Senate because of the obvious desirability of making it possible for every citizen with an Internet connection to be a few mouse clicks away from knowing how their federal tax dollars are being spent, subject only to reasonable exceptions for things like national security and law enforcement. The federal spending database should come on line in 2009.