Sunlight Foundation

Scott Amey at the Project for Government Oversight’s POGO blog writes about being positively surprised by one thing he found at USAspending.gov, the government site modeled after OMB Watch’s FedSpending.org. 2007 data has been replaced by updated FY 2008 and 2009 totals. (This is shocking on two fronts. The government is usually years behind in reporting contract spending dollars.)

But Scott’s more shocked to find that the government spent over $510 billion on goods and services in FY 2008. “And if history repeats, this total will increase by an additional $10-$20 billion as agencies report additional information,” he writes. That amount would rank as the 25^th largest GDP in the world, he figures.

In the shadow of the huge multi-trillion dollar financial bailout, all these huge numbers are mind numbing. Federal contract spending is out of control, and deserving of much more oversight and transparency, don’t you think?