Search Results for “stimulus”
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Building a National Campaign for Transparency
When we got back into the office here at Sunlight on January 4th, we knew 2010 was the year we needed to build a national campaign of people calling for an open, transparent government everywhere across the country. We’ve known for months in fact, but honestly, we had no idea how people would respond when we put the word out.
Now, only three weeks later, a few very big events have unfolded, and each new event has created new opportunities – as well as more need for our collective action than ever before. In other words, it’s abundantly clear that we’re on the right track.
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Shifting Legislative Dynamics & Transparency
A couple of days ago I wrote about some of the potential transparency issues related to the decision by House and Senate Democrats to skip conference for the health care reform bill (see here for background on what conference is). After thinking more and more about the issue I’m inclined to believe that the issues [...]
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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 18
Today I am giving a high five to Minnesota’s Bluestem Prairie.
Written by Sally Jo Sorenson, she keeps track of what is going on in Minnesota. What attracted me to Bluestem in the first place was the focus on keeping track of Rep. Tim Walz from MN first district. Sally did a great job of looking [...] -
72 Hours for Defense Appropriation Bill
Last week, Congress spent $1.1 trillion tax dollars by combining six pieces of appropriations (“spending”) legislation into one 1,000+ page “minibus” bill and passing it with almost no public disclosure or debate. In fact, the bill was available to the public online for less than 24 hours.
Before December 18th, Congress will be taking up the [...] -
24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Days 8, 9, 10 and 11
Whew! It has been a busy week but don’t worry Local Sunlight fans I haven’t forgot who I am thankful for.
Pennsylvania’s Above Average Jane, Oregon’s Tom Cusak, South Carolina’s SC6 and Rhode Island’s Twelfth!
I have highlighted Above Average Jane a few times. I like her summaries of what is going on in the Pennsylvania [...] -
A Closer Look at CRS’s Recent Report “Lobbying and the Executive Branch”
The Congressional Research Service just released a report entitled “Lobbying and the Executive Branch: Current Practices and Options for Change.” It reaches an unsupported conclusion about the effect of the administration’s lobbying disclosure rules, and also contains several factual and analytical errors. Ultimately, the Administration needs to do more to disclose lobbying contacts online, [...]
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Morning Links
1) Big Obama donors complain that they aren’t getting enough perks for all the money they helped raise. Didn’t Obama and his team realize that you need to pamper wealthy donors or else they turn into petulant children?
2) A retiring Democratic congressman is considered one of the top prospects in the 2010 lobbyist draft.
3) Federal-inspectors [...] -
How Transparent is Your Turkey?
The government collects terabytes of data on food—from safety to marketing to subsidies—funded by taxpayers and consumers. But that does not mean this crucial information is available to you online and in real time so you can actually do something about it.
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Stimulus Leads to Better State Level Reporting
NextGov reports on positive side-effects of the stimulus’ disclosure and transparency provisions:
Technology that states have deployed to report how they spent federal stimulus funds is likely to permanently change information exchange across the public and private sector, despite controversy over figures on the number of jobs created and saved, said New York officials, academics and [...] -
Recovery Board Chairman Can’t Certify That Data Is Accurate, Auditable
Recovery.gov is supposed to be a transparency clearing house for information on the federal stimulus spending appropriated in the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed earlier this year. Unfortunately, the reports on spending and jobs saved or created are showing errors across the board.
Clay Johnson at Sunlight Labs looked at the “dirty secret” [...]