Obama Still Wants Gov't Contracts Online
GovernmentExecutive.com reports that it's unclear whether President Obama's campaign proposal to post copies of all government contracts online has the support of Congress or is even logistically viable. Kenneth Baer, communications director for the Office of Management and Budget, said Wednesday that Obama continues to support the principles of a bill he introduced while in the Senate that would have added vastly more information to USASpending.gov.
In June 2008, then-Sen. Obama and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced a follow-up to their 2006 Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act, which created USASpending.gov. The 2008 legislation -- ballyhooed at the time because it was co-sponsored by Obama's Republican rival for the presidency, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- received high-level support but never moved out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. An identical bill in the House also floundered.
A Senate Democratic source familiar with the legislation said in an e-mail that the bill failed to move because "OMB and others questioned whether it was possible to do everything that the bill tried to do, and Sens. Obama and Coburn didn't [or] couldn't address the concerns that were raised in time. "While many of the original sponsors continue to support the legislation's intentions, "there is no plan to reintroduce the bill," the source said.
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