STATUS REPORT
around the nation—each focusing on different legal, policy, and technical questions—have begun to address these issues as well.
V. TRANSPARENCY FOR TAXPAYERS: FEDERAL SPENDING DISCLOSURE
Information about government expenditures is an especially important category of information warranting greater public disclosure. Simply put, citizens are entitled to know where their tax dollars go. As a corollary, government should make that information readily accessible. A number of websites provide that transparency, and furthermore solicit public participation to ensure the best use of taxpayer dollars.
Recovery Act
Recovery.gov provides comprehensive and detailed information about how funds allocated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) have been spent. This website provides data about tax benefits, government contracts, grants and loans, and Recovery Act entitlement spending. It traces the use of Recovery Act dollars by spending agency, by recipient and subrecipient, and by geography. In fact, Recovery.gov shows where stimulus spending takes place, down to specific zip codes. It also provides information about specific Recovery Act projects. In addition, Recovery.gov allows citizens who suspect fraudulent use of Recovery Act funds to alert the Recovery Board that administers the funds. The quantity and quality of spending information at Recovery.gov is unprecedented. The federal website also provided a model that lead the states to create state-level websites on Recovery Act spending.
Federal Grants
USASpending.gov, revised and re-launched in March 2010, provides expanded transparency of federal spending information beyond Recovery Act funds. It provides extensive information about federal contracts, grants, and loans in one searchable location. USASpending.gov now also includes spending data on sub-awards to federal grants and contracts. The public can therefore now track how taxpayer dollars are spent down to the sub-award level.
Information Technology Spending
The federal government spends significant resources on investments in information technology (IT). IT.usaspending.gov is a new information clearinghouse that allows the public visually to track approximately $80 billion in federal IT initiatives and to hold the government accountable for its investments in new IT. The website's dashboard allows the public to see which IT projects are working and on-schedule and which are not. It solicits public participation as well, by allowing the public to offer alternative approaches to planned government IT spending and to provide feedback to the chief information officers at federal agencies about their IT investments. And increased transparency in this context has in fact exposed underperforming
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