Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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Budget.Gov?
With the President’s budget scheduled for release next week, I’ve grown increasingly interested in how the sausage is made: each agency’s recommendations and justifications, OMB’s clarifications and prioritizations, legislative language, committee actions, implementation reports, and after-the-fact evaluations.
In digging into the issue, I’ve found a mishmash of resources spread throughout the internet (that I’ve compiled here). What has become increasingly apparent is that there is no single place where citizens, journalists, and legislative staff can access information about the budget. Often times, the underlying numbers are locked away in PDFs and budget justifications are available only in obscure locations on government web sites.
Wouldn’t it be great is we could easily compare what was allocated versus what was expended? To see how the numbers changed over time? To find the legislative language, OMB’s short summary of a particular appropriation bill, and the agency’s justification all in one place — right next to a report on how it was actually spent? To be able to translate budget-speak and codes into plain English?
Maybe this already exists, but I haven’t been able to find it. So I have three suggestions:
- Require each agency or department that submits a budget to place all of their budget materials at the URL www.agency.gov/budget.
- Have all federal government budget materials compiled in one place: budget.gov
- Make sure that all data is provided in a downloadable spreadsheet format, replete with common identifiers that allow information to be compared across spreadsheets, and in machine-readable format. Explanatory text should be in machine-readable formats as well, like XML, and not just locked in PDFs.
OMB Circular A-11, which sets forth how the budget should be prepared, submitted, and executed, has a section that regulates communications with the public and Congress. Its real purpose, alas, seems to be preventing communications. Perhaps it should be updated to accomplish the three purposes I identified above.
I welcome any comments or suggestions, particularly if there is a budget resource out there that does what I’ve talked about and was missed in this list of resources.
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A Senate Read the Bill Amendment Falls Five Votes Short
Yesterday, Sen. John Cornyn introduced an amendment to the budget that would require “five days of public review of legislation before passage by the Senate.” The amendment would have required all bills, joint resolutions, or conference reports to be posted online along with any budget score provided by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The amendment failed by a 46-52 vote and fell largely along party lines.
While the amendment goes much further than Sunlight’s Read the Bill campaign is pushing–the difference between 112 hours and 72 hours in legislative time is huge–this amendment provides a good test case for how a debate over a Read the Bill fight in Congress would occur. Essentially, we have the majority protecting their perorogatives to control debate and bring bills up as they please voting against the amendment (save for Sens. Bayh, Klobuchar, Landrieu, McCaskill, and Nelson (NE)). Then there is the minority, and the above mentioned Democrats, trying to exert their own power over the control of debate.
What is most interesting here for me is how close this vote was, especially in the Senate. No one knew about this amendment and thus there was no organizing. It would have only taken a flip of five Democrats to pass this amendment, which, to me, is shocking. It is rare to see the majority give up any control over the floor and debate in either chamber of Congress. The fact that this amendment, which goes much further than the Read the Bill proposal, was only five votes from passing places an even greater importance on putting more pressure on Congress.
Please go ReadTheBill.org and sign the petition, or pass it on to your friends and have them sign it. The more signatures we have, the more pressure we can bring to Congress, and the more likely we can get a Read the Bill rule passed in Congress. If it’s already this close with no pressure, imagine what we can do when we turn up the heat.
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Dear Public: Arizona needs your help with the budget!
As reported by Government Technology:
Arizona just launched a new Web site, Arizona’s Openness and Saving Strategies Project. From the site:
These are tight times, and Arizona’s budget is no exception. That’s why we need to find every good idea we can, and put those ideas to work to help state government agencies save money. This site contains news about Arizona’s budget, as well as examples of savings strategies that have already been implemented in Arizona and are working now. State employees can also use this site to find cost-saving measures in use at other agencies. Just as importantly, you will find ways to Submit Your Own Ideas to help our state cut back even further.
This new project opens up the buget process so state agencies can collaborate with each other and citizens can share their ideas for saving money with officals. It also has budget related news and gives information on how the state budget is produced.
With this project Arizona is really exploring new ways to deal with its budget deficit. Not to mention that inviting the community at large to participate in fixing their state financial problems empowers citizens to really invest in their state and not just hope politicians will fix it. I wish Congress would think about more ways like this to involve the wisdom of the masses to help solve problems. It would be very democratic of them.
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Congress Disinterested in Whether USDA Program Works, Washington Post Reports
Department of Agriculture efforts intended to create jobs in rural areas, including the Rural Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program, haven’t quite worked as planned:
Funds have gone to firms that have hired foreign workers instead of Americans. Millions more have gone to failing and bankrupt businesses. Most of the jobs are not new. Many are low-tech and low-wage.
In addition to the loan program, the USDA has handed out almost half a billion dollars in rural development grants to businesses and nonprofits since 2001.
Loan guarantees or grants have gone to a car wash in Milford, Del.; a country club in Great Falls, Mont.; a movie theater in Smithfield, N.C.; a water park in Myrtle Beach, S.C.; an alligator hunter in Dade City, Fla.; snowmobile clubs in Maine; and dozens of gas stations and convenience stores in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Arkansas.
The article, written by Gilbert M. Gaul in today’s Washington Post, provides the kind of in depth examination of government spending that should be routine but sadly, rarely happens. Perhaps his most disturbing finding about the Rural Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program is this: “More than three decades after the loan program was created, USDA officials still don’t know whether it works.” Office of Management and Budget assessed the program in 2003, at which time USDA disclosed that, “No independent performance evaluations have been conducted to assess the program’s impact on improving economic opportunities in rural communities.” And, Gaul reports, members of Congress have other interests: making sure the money spigot stays open.
Congressional committees charged with overseeing USDA business programs rarely question the agency’s claims or probe deeply into the programs. Instead, some lawmakers have aggressively lobbied the USDA to approve costly projects in their districts.
In 1999, members of Washington state’s congressional delegation urged the USDA to guarantee a $20 million loan to a troubled sugar beet refinery near Moses Lake. The agency agreed, even though the borrower was already in default on existing loans. Within months the plant failed and defaulted on its newest loan, sticking taxpayers with a $12.1 million loss.
The article is part of the excellent Harvesting Cash series that’s dissecting Department of Agriculture programs. I wish the Post, or other papers, would take the same care to examine Commerce, HUD, Labor and HHS programs as well. And for those interested, beneficiaries of the Rural Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program from 2000 to 2006 can be found on FedSpending.org, here.
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Budget Graph Shows How Money is Spent
TheBudgetGraph.com just released their 2008 poster that brilliantly shows where taxpayer dollars are spent in the Federal government. Not surprisingly, over one-third of the poster is made up of defense spending. The office/agency checking in with the lowest budget is also not surprising – the Office of Government Ethics with $12 million. See more numbers below or click through to check out the poster yourself.
Our intern Rich combed through some of these numbers and came up with some interesting finds:
If I’m not mistaken, it looks like if you’re talking about department as in "secretary of" then Commerce looks the lowest with "only" $6.467 billion.
But other small budget organizations include the National Science Foundation with 5.901 billion, the EPA with 7.200 billion, labor with 10.569 billion, treasury with 12.136 billion, and the Small Business Administration with "only" .463 billion.
You also have the Judicial Branch as a whole with just 6.720 billion and the legislative branch with 4.820 billion and those are increases.
Also the executive office of the president with .340 billion.
Interestingly the corps of engineers gets 4.871 billion which is a 3%
are 19% decreases in construction and 11% decreases in flood control,The Budget Graph shows increases and decreases in funding by percentage over the past year for each agency/office/project. The biggest loser over the last year turns out to be in the State Department; development assistance is down 67% from the previous budget to only $1.041 billion. Other agencies/offices/projects taking big hits include the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with a 25% cut, Amtrak with a 28% cut, the Community Development Fund with a 28% cut, Housing for the Elderly with a 23% cut, the Safe and Drug Free Schools program with a 38% cut, and the Economic Development Administration with a 22% cut.
Take a spin around this map of the Budget, it is fascinating to look at.
