Stimulus Transparency Still Months Away
From CongressDaily's AM Edition:
The much-touted online transparency promised by the Obama administration to allow public tracking of federal stimulus funds might still be months away, as agencies puzzle over the depth of detail required in their weekly reports and Web site architects scramble to design a user-friendly database to handle an ocean of information. Good-government groups and administration officials envision the Recovery.gov Web site as a clearinghouse that lets citizens monitor the dollar-by-dollar effects of economic recovery funds in their hometowns. But with a variety of details in weekly reports from federal agencies, duplicative or hard-to-decipher data sources and reporting requirements that critics say are too shallow to offer meaningful oversight at the local level, the site so far offers little help to watchdogs hoping to map the flow of $787 billion in funds.
"We are waiting for Recovery.gov to post useful data, and that has just not happened yet," said Jerry Brito of the George Mason University Mercatus Center. Brito is a co-founder of independent site StimulusWatch.org, which allows citizens to rate the merit of potential stimulus projects in their communities. White House accountability czars at OMB and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board share Brito's goal, but they say that supplying the public with the tools to become stimulus watchdogs will take months. Building a database on Recovery.gov with that level of transparency, stimulus overseer Earl Devaney told a group of state recovery representatives Thursday, could take over a year.
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