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Recovery.gov Not Very Transparent
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Mar 19, 2009 04:34 PM
from the why-do-you-despise-progress? dept.
from the why-do-you-despise-progress? dept.
Bob the Super Hamste writes "CNN is reporting that the page recovery.gov is
not as transparent as it claims to be. The examples pointed out are:
1. The user is greeted by a large pie chart that show the breakdown of money spent by 2 categories, state government distributions and local government distributions.
2. Finding projects involves a complicated search, information on projects is not actually hosted on recovery.gov
3. The format of the information available is of poor quality (the article specifically mentions a PDF document that was created from a scanned sideways copy of roadwork projects from New York state).
Given that this site was meant to make the spending of the new stimulus money more transparent to the citizens of the Unites States of America it seems oddly opaque. CNN does seem to praise the ability for government agencies to be able to exchange HTML based information between systems, which for government I would call a massive accomplishment.
I tried to find information for my state and searched for Minnesota. I got 4 matches, 2 of which were generic ones: one was the Minnesota state certification that is required for a state to receive funds and one that lays out public transportation spending for all states of which Minnesota gets $94,093,115."
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Not very transparent? (Score:5, Funny)
That's because IE6 doesn't support alpha in PNG images. It's time to upgrade your browser, dude.
Yes they could make it much easier. (Score:5, Funny)
Finding projects involves a complicated search, information on projects is not actually hosted on recovery.gov
Instead of complicated search, just a pie chart showing a few categories. This money was wasted, this money was not wasted, we have no idea what happened to this money but we no longer have it and I could have sworn we had it.
It's about web design (Score:4, Informative)
The information is there; you just have to spend several minutes to find it. Of course, it's a massive challenge to bring all this info together -- I'm sure that's why they have only general summaries on the main page and leave the details up to the state pages (since the states have the nitty-gritty details). That's the lazy route, but it requires more work on the part of your visitors. For example, here's my state's highway projects [iowadot.gov] and our local road projects [iowadot.gov]. Apparently they're going to be doing an overlay on 218, which I take whenever I drive to/from Cedar Rapids; fixing the pedestrian bridge on US 1 that was damaged by the flood that I sometimes walk on; doing some repairs at the Melrose and Sunset intersection on the UI campus, which I drive through perhaps once a month; replacing a bridge I drive over fairly regularly in Coralville; and doing some reconstruction up in Cedar Rapids on a road I drive on about once a month. But I had to follow the link to the Iowa site and navigate around in there to get those documents.
Tough challenge = slow implementation.
Parent
pork site:gov (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If I'm not mistaken all US federal and state web sites are in the domain .gov
The Feds mainly use .gov, but the states often use .xx.us in which xx is the state abbreviation. (The states also use .gov sometimes, and even .xx.gov).
Districts and territories also often use xx.us subdomains, even those with top-level domains of their own. Sovereign Native American tribes use .nsn.us.
The federal government has a few second-level stuff.us domains, as well. This all makes global searching using Google's site modifier a pain in the tuckus.
Re:It's about web design (Score:4, Funny)
that was damaged by the flood that I sometimes walk on
Jesus? Is that you?
Parent
Re:Yes they could make it much easier. (Score:5, Informative)
3D pie charts that show only 2 numbers are the devil's work.
What this tells me more than anything else is that although they want to be transparent, the people who put this together know almost nothing about presentation of data.
Please, everybody, read Tufte [edwardtufte.com]. Even if you don't agree with everything that he says, think about his points.
Then, for the love of God, never, ever, create a 3D pie chart again.
Parent
Re:Yes they could make it much easier. (Score:4, Funny)
Man, this data presentation job sucks! Mocking McCain's computer-illiteracy [youtube.com] last year was sooo much more fun...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They certainly don't expect YOU to read it either...
I'm shocked. (Score:5, Funny)
The Fleecing of America (Score:4, Interesting)
US taxpayer money has *NEVER* really been tracked/reported fully and honestly. The public *NEEDS* to be aware of where their money goes. It is your money, your house, your car, your environment, YOUR GOVERNMENT and again, money.
Accounting/reporting where the money goes may be expensive - but can we afford not to?
Just please tell us where all this money is going. Be accountable for your actions. Be HONEST! The days of hiding shit are over.
Open Source Government.
Re:The Fleecing of America (Score:4, Funny)
Just please tell us where all this money is going. Be accountable for your actions. Be HONEST! The days of hiding shit are over.
Oh where, oh where art thou? How may I join thee in thy fantasy world?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Open Source Government.
Kinda tough to have that when even copyright law proposals are being labeled as matters of national security [slashdot.org].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
well at least... (Score:5, Interesting)
...the source of the site is transparent:
http://www.recovery.gov/modules/system/system.module [recovery.gov]
Hmm they really might want to get that Drupal updated to 6.10!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
all system files are exposed, for example: http://www.recovery.gov/modules/statistics/statistics.module [recovery.gov]
either they've set permissions wrong, or their .htaccess is failing, or...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:well at least... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
damn you slashcode!
http://paste.pierce.tv/?p=j3mzg68t0v&pasteid=1689 [pierce.tv]
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Better than nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If I were president, I would put transparency, corruption, and a balanced budget at the top of the list of priorities, because those are like tar that slows everything else down. Once you actually have a balanced budget you can see clearly how many resources you have available to put towards health care, what
Re:Better than nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it seems that now government officials need to have "experience" (i.e., they need to be properly trained in political corruption by former political experience). Normal people just wouldn't be able to do the job well, apparently. Stupid normal people.
Which is, I presume, why we get such smart legislation as banning talking on cell phones (without hands-free stuff) but NOT banning text messaging, etc. That one just happened to be recent in my mind. (it's a CA law)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I just think it's the most amazing coincidence that we got the only competent and non-corrupt politician out of the entire state of Illinois in the White House. Dodged a real bullet there.
Re:Better than nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Obama's CIO didn't "step down because of corruption in his home team". He stepped aside for a few days after someone in his "home team" was suddenly and without warning arrested for charges that had nothing to do with the CIO. An arrest that was somehow timed to happen days after the CIO started, though the investigation was going on for months.
The CIO has no evidence against him, nothing indicating he ever did anything related to the arrest (which itself is not proof of that other guy's guilt). All he did was delay his start as CIO for a few days so that could all become clear. And now he's back, because it had nothing to do with him. Except perhaps he spent some time helping the investigation find its way around his old office, since he'd just been running it.
I understand you're not American. But if you're following the rest of our thrashing as closely as you evidently followed the "America's CIO's rocky start" story, you should look closer before you jump to conclusions. Because you were pretty wrong on that one, and the other one is much more important, and much more complex.
Parent
Re:Better than nothing (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe they're working on that - like a standardized format for all government documents using XML. I would have sworn there was something about that on /. a few months ago, though I could have had one too many hits from the snake.
Parent
Better yet, cut spending! (Score:4, Insightful)
The one thing that should be even more important than those, however, is cutting back spending. It's not enough to just have a balanced budget... Soviet Russia balance its budget all day long, but overall spending was so high that they sucked their citizens dry with taxes, rewarded people who didn't work at the same level as those who did, and generally stifled their economy. Your anology about tar is actually good, but it doesn't quite go far enough. Really, it should be: "The government is like tar. If it is cut back, society as a whole would run so much more smoothly."
PS - Does anyone realize that at the start of this decade, we had a two trillion dollar budget, and now it's four trillion? Does a 100% increase in ten years seem warranted? Does anything else in this country, whether it be individual incomes or corporate revenues, grow that fast? Does this seem sustainable? How many jobs have been destroyed by government (think of how many people could have been employed had that two trillion stayed in the private sector, rather than being sucked up by government)? This year alone, in a recession, several departments like "Housing and Urban Development" and the agriculture department got 45% percent budget increases. Does that seem right, when EVERYTHING else in America is scaling back? Is it sustainable?
New York's economy just shrunk by about 4%, while Washington's grew by 3%. Does that seem right? The 165 million spent by AIG on retention bonuses (note: not performance bonuses) was 1/1000 of the amount given them in the bailout. Meanwhile, congress passed the 800 billion stimulus bill, the massive Omnibus bill, and the earmark bill. Is this sustainable? Why are we nitpicking this tiny amount when trillions are being spent and squandered? Especially since both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been giving out bonuses just like this, and they were bailed out even more? Could there be any more hypocrisy on this? Of course, Fannie and Freddie are Chris Dodd and Barney Frank's favorite institutions, institutions they protected from President Bush, who believe it or not fought to reform them earlier in his second term, before anyone even knew this was all coming. What a mess we might have been spared had that actually happened, although we still would have had problems, since Bush was probably the fifth worst president on fiscal responsibility... right behind Lyndon Johnson, FDR, Jimmy Carter, and already the grandaddy of them all, Barack Obama, who's own budget projections show he will add more to the national debt in his first term than all other presidents COMBINDED. By the way, is that sustainable?
I would say, "Absolutely Not!", and that's why it is time for an immediate spending cut. And by the way Mr. President, we really do need an axe, not a scalpel.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh... you know that.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uh... you know that.. (Score:5, Insightful)
None of this really surprises me.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Other sites have pointed out that publishing PDFs containing scanned versions of the hardcopy of the legislation is more about giving the appearance of being "open" while frustrating those who want to do text searches on the legislation.
Or, to be fair, it could simply be because scanned hardcopies are easily available and therefore used as a first version, since speed is deemed to be important in this project. As I recall, many organisations with the need to handle large amounts of documents do it this way - they scan letters from clients, court documents and everything else, put it in a database and runs it through OCR if deemed necessary.
I think what we need here is a slightly more balanced outlook. I know it is traditional in public dis
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the thrust of your segment is "Look! They lied! This site is broken and will never be fixed! I can't USE IT!"
Do you think the first thing you are going to do is go ask your techie how to use the site more smoothly?
Check the timeline... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Check the timeline... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a bit more of the timeline from the site... I seem to remember reading that there's no standard format defined for this data, so expect to see a bunch of garbage initially. If you want an easily manipulated database you might have to *shudder* get involved.
July 15, 2009
Recipients of Federal funding to begin reporting on their use of funds
May 20, 2009
Federal Agencies to begin reporting their competitive grants and contracts
May 15, 2009
Detailed agency financial reports to become available
May 03, 2009
Federal Agencies to make Performance Plans publicly available
Federal Agencies to begin reporting on their allocations for entitlement programs
March 03, 2009
Federal Agencies to begin reporting use of funds
February 19, 2009
Federal Agencies to begin reporting their formula block grant awards
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I seem to remember reading that there's no standard format defined for this data, so expect to see a bunch of garbage initially. If you want an easily manipulated database you might have to *shudder* get involved.
They have defined the standard format for this data, as well as many of the procedures required, and then put the instructions to the agencies and departments up on the site. See the detailed guidance memorandum [recovery.gov].
If you ask me, that is very transparent.
a curious attack (Score:5, Insightful)
recovery.gov is not as transparent as it claims to be. The examples pointed out are: 1. The user is greeted by a large [pie] chart that show the breakdown of money spent by 2 categories, state government distributions and local government distributions.
That's not an example.
information on projects is not actually hosted on recovery.gov
Did someone promise it would be?
I would call [the information-exchange] a massive accomplishment
Strange title to this story, then.
Re:a curious attack (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Not as easy as you might think (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole process is not transparent (Score:5, Interesting)
I would rather see the law making process more transparent, just look at the stimulus bill:
source: http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/hiding+the+sausage [downsizedc.org]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
By trying to hide the bias, you are giving the appearance that the information isn't biased. I fact, leaving it in there is a STRONG indicator it needs to taken with a grain of salt...the size of your head.
For a moment I will assume it's accurate.
You know what? considering the time they have had and the amount of change this is, I think they did a good job.
If they are doing this crap 18 months from now they might have a point.
Of course, I am not happy with the stimulus bill. I understand there thinking, but
Re:The whole process is not transparent (Score:5, Insightful)
The time they had? I think they had more time than they wanted you to think. When a politician says "we need to pass this bill now! we need to spend money now!" and when the bill is so long that most of the people that voted on it didn't even read it ...
I really don't see how waiting 48 hours (two days) would have killed the economy. Oh my goodness, we had to wait 48 more hours before waiting several more months before getting stimulus money.
If it wasn't bad enough that it's just spending more money than we actually have to somehow fix the problem of spending more money than we should be, on top of that it's been railroaded through Congress on the basis of a presumed crisis. I'm not saying there aren't people struggling or that the economy didn't "crash" but this is not the worst thing since the Great Depression (at least not yet, but the people saying that aren't forecasting with doubt, they're saying it IS ...) - of course, it was superficially inflated to begin with. What I am saying is that top democrats/leading democrats appear to have taken this "crisis" as an opportunity to push their agenda and "sell" it to the public using fear (including ridiculous numbers by Pelosi, who twice referred to "500 million jobs" being lost every month, etc).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly! Why don't more people see that?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"do you have a cite for that Pelosi quote?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UR5M5teyQ0 [youtube.com]
It's also worth nothing that the Great Depression was a global problem too [wikipedia.org].
Secondly, politicians keep saying that this is going to be worse than the great depression, if it isn't already. They're saying, as you are repeating, that companies are losing jobs fast and that the unemployment rate might hit a whopping 8 or 9 percent in 2009. In 1982 the unemployment rate surpassed 10% [stlouisfed.org] and in 1932, during the great depression, the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the fallacy of keynesian economics to focus only on consumption.
What got us into this mess was over consumption caused by credit expansion. We don't need consumers to spend right now. We need to liquidate our debts, sell off toxic assets, allow unprofitable businesses to fail and start SAVING again. Capital comes from savings, a concept that seems foreign in short-sighted keynesian economics. People think that by saving they're hoarding and the money is sitting idle. This is false. When people save the
Re:The whole process is not transparent (Score:5, Insightful)
youre comparing a hobo's shit with a beautiful princess's shit. theyre both shit, and it doesnt matter which one dumped first.
i wish people would stop using the last administration's fuckups to excuse the current administration's fuckups.
Parent
Ahh, Cracked's Nirvana fallacy at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
Go read this [cracked.com]. Here, let me quote:
Pathetic when Cracked is out there teaching such basic lessons... *sigh*
classic propaganda (Score:3, Insightful)
the obama administration is attempting to be transparent. this is hard. it involves complicated financial arrangements. such that is very easy to poke holes in how complicated arrangements are attempted to be communicated in simple ways. its frankly impossible without finding someone somewhere who complains. the only way to be accurate, is to regurgitate all the fine detail, which if course, would also be criticized as being too complicated
in other words, you can't win
meanwhile, BEFORE the obama administration, there was not any attempt to be transparent at all. so the obama administration, rather than being lauded for trying to do something hard and asked for by the public, is portrayed in negative ways by partisan hacks because it falls short of the ideal
hey, rather than kick them because you hold them to high standards, why don't you congratulate them and thank them for making such dramatic progress over all previous administrations?
as time gtoes on, if obvious and straightforward progress is not met, then jump all over their case. meanwhile, what is it, march 2009? two months time?
thank you obbama administration, and good job. ignore the usual unsatisfiable cranks
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm just saying it would be nice if the law were a little more succinct so that we could see the details of the laws getting passed.
If that were the case, they wouldn't be able to pass a Child Healthcare bill with millions allocated to impotence research... etc...
Also they wouldn't be able to create a reserve of laws that was sufficient to incriminate any citizen at any time.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Heck, I would love to see every Congressman's page on Wikipedia updated with all the earmarks for their districts and states and their vote on the bill which funded them.
You mean like this [house.gov]?
Congressional rules already require members to report their earmarks. More such rules are in the works.
And why such hating on earmarks? Earmarks in and of themselves are a good thing because they allow members to bring very local concerns and needs into the federal budgeting process. Sometimes the executive branch doesn't quite understand the local situations on the ground. That's why Congress controls the purse strings.
As long as earmarks are disclosed and go through some kind of vet