Have You Visited Recovery.gov Lately?
I hadn’t, but when I did…wow.
First, right there on the front page you have a map that details the total dollars announced, available and spent on the both the national and state levels (when you mouse over each graph or state).
But the most impressive feature by far is when you enter in your zip code and find out where the recovery dollars are going in your area.
Upon doing so, this prompt pops up and tells you where the data is coming from…
Then, the dollars spent are geolocated to specific businesses, not for profits, etc., and they’re clickable so you can see see how money is being given out and what it’s going for.
Here, the part circled in red details the amount in contracts, grants and loans that has been spent in the 64105 area code. The part circled in blue is the information that pops up after you click on a dot on the map.
And if you want even more info about how the money was spent, you can click on another link to pop open a new window that will give you all the details.
This is really unprecedented access to see how our tax dollars are being spent and I hope it gets highlighted far and wide.
Here’s the question: Why don’t all big spending bills carry this level of transparency?
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Thanks for the informative post, Justin. I visited the site when it first was introduced, but hadn’t been there for six months. It certainly is impressive, and I agree that it would be great for all of our country’s funded legislation to have a publicly accessible Web site to ensure transparency.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ryan. Ryan said: Wow. Been to recovery.gov lately? http://bit.ly/FEZ8I "Why don’t all big spending bills carry this level of transparency?" [...]
Justin – glad to see the post. I too am impressed with the GIS mashups between contracts and locations. Be on the lookout towards the end of this week/ beginning of next because the recipients’ side of the map will also begin populating with data. I had an interesting conversation with one of Microsoft’s gurus re: transparency and Recovery.gov – he had some interesting (read caffeinated) things to say. Check it out if you get a chance. http://civsourceonline.com/2009/10/07/managing-the-recovery-acts-transparency-expectations/
Jeff, YES! I saw that! Will be a great update to this post. Thanks for the link!
Wow, indeed. This is exactly what we need across the board in government. There’s still way too many government sites that make data mining an almost dangerous task.
Recovery.gov may be pretty, but the bailout is still far from transparent. The New York Times, Bloomberg and Fox News have all filed lawsuits because the Federal Reserve has refused to provide the names of financial firms that borrowed from bailout-related lending programs in response to FOIA requests.
See coverage here:
http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11017