the kicker

NPR on recovery.gov

April 24, 2009

Last night on All Things Considered NPR correspondent Andrea Seabrook filed the first of a two part series on how technology is changing the way government works.

The piece focused on recovery.gov, the website that’s meant to make it easy for everyone to track how stimulus dollars are being spent across the country. It’s a good primer on the administration’s thinking on the issue.

But it doesn’t do much to explore what transparency experts have pointed out as shortcomings in the government’s plan. Last week, the Coalition for an Accountable Recovery recently submitted comments (downloadable as a .pdf) for improving disclosure on the site to the Office of Management and Budget, encouraging all recipients of more than $25,000 in recovery funds, no matter how far removed they are from larger grantees, to file reports for the site. Among other step, CAR is recommending expanded use of web data feeds to release the data and broader disclosure of contracts, requests for proposal, and bid information for all projects over $200,000.

(Disclosure: One member of CAR is the Sunlight Foundation, which supports CJR’s transparency reporting.)

Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.