As President Obama mentioned in his speech, there is in fact an informative website one can use when assessing the recovery plan, recovery.gov. I just visited it, and I must say that my first impression if very positive. Given how much money is about to be spent, it will probably quickly fill up with loads of data, and commentators, including bloggers, will have to sift through a lot of information to keep tabs on all of the money being spent. However, for once it seems like a tool has been created that will encourage public oversight of the Federal government. The tone of the website is entirely different from what we have come to expect from president Bush, and its very existence will probably encourage the people in charge of recovery money to be a bit more careful about how they spend it.
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Still a ways to go, but yes, it is a good sign.
I’m a huge fan of these two ideas:
Opening up federal appropriations data into XML format to allow for easy widgetizing and sharing, searching, etc.
Annual reports to taxpayers. Every taxpayer in the country should receive a report on the federal budget, how it is funded and how the spending is handled. Most Americans wildly underestimate the size of the defense budget and overestimate the size of other budgets. Good information could go a long way toward addressing those issues.This is the sort of stuff that liberals and conservatives really should be able to agree on.