Simple Man Politics

President Obama has promised us a transparent government and has started the ball rolling with a website called Recovery.gov, which is supposed to allow the taxpayer to follow the 787 billion dollars in economic stimulus authorized in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This is supposed to show us what states, cities, contractors and non profits have received these funds.

The web is definitely the right place to do this and will show us the taxpayer if the government is ultimately really becoming more open. At this point though this program is still in its infancy and with many hurdles still to go before Obama can say it is a success. I for one think it has great potential as long as it is not mired down in bureaucratic red tape and political manipulation.

One of recovery.govs biggest obstacles is the vast amount of data sources it will need to incorporate, there are virtually hundreds of thousands of different sources that the government will need to disseminate and incorporate into one site to give us the whole picture. Unfortunately todays agencies only email spreadsheets that show the first step in funds distribution but not the entire trail from start to finish. There is much more at stake here though than just tracking the stimulus money this could ultimately change the way government shares data.

Greg Elin, Chief Evangelist for the Sunlight Foundation, a non profit that promotes government transparency compares the possibility to the way Wal-Mart using the web and data sharing within its corporate structure to maximize revenue, performance, and reliability between itself and its vendors. Wal-Mart has been in the forefront of using web based technologies and tools in the private sector but not without a lot of trial and error.

The possibility that this new effort by the Obama administration could fall prey to the same sort of failures as USAspending.gov, a site that came out of the Federal Funding and Transparency Act of 2006. This act was introduced by then Senator Barack Obama (D) of Illinois and Senator Coburn (R) of Oklahoma is very real. Due to the bills requirements for pilot programs, XML data formatting, and unresolved chronic issues the bill went no where and shows no potential.

There are five big risks that recovery.gov still faces and they are very challenging to the success of this latest attempt at governmental transparency by the Obama administration. Here is a list of these five risks as posted in Information Week.

1) Stale Data- Manual email updates won’t deliver enough fresh data and will be costly to maintain. A better route: Web standard data feeds.
2) Useless Data. Unless citizens can easily search and analyze the information, it’s just a portal into yet another data silo.
3) States Resist. The feds are working out what data they can demand. Without it transparency hits a dead end at the state level.
4) Feds Resist. Agencies can’t refuse OMB rules, but they can drag their feet on needed IT investments.
5) Delays. Stimulus spending gives transparency unusual urgency and delays can squander this momentum.

The OMB (Office of Management and Budget) is the agency running point on addressing a lot of these IT questions. Their current plan is to receive all data centrally at a site tentatively called FederalReporting.gov and it is from this site that data will be drawn to present on the Recovery.gov website. The worry here is that they will not have all of the information available to the public until fall when first quarter spending reports are due. By that time there will have been tens of billions of dollars paid out.

The Obama administration has not been very bashful about asking for help in resolving IT issues, which is a good thing if Recovery.gov is to get off of the ground and work effectively. The week of April 27th 2009 Recovery.gov aired a video on YouTube asking for help. Earl Devaney the former Inspector General of the Department of the Interior who now chairs the Recovery Board has asked leading IT developers, thinkers, and consumers to take part in an online roundtable at TheNationalDialogue.org so that their knowledge could influence the development and operation of Recovery.gov.

To say the least there has been a lot of effort, thought, and talent put up to try to make Recovery.gov a viable, valuable, and important entity in this supposed new age of governmental transparency that has been promised by the Obama administration. This idea of a transparency 2.0 could very well be the important first step and I think a good one as well. My worry is not that Recovery.gov cannot be done my worry is that transparency was just an empty campaign promise.

There has already been evidence that this administration and its supporters have used secrecy, diversion, and outright deception to achieve their goals, which is not surprising to me since most of them seem to be tax cheats and liars anyway. Then again most politicians are liars at one time or another if it furthers their cause. I think transparency is a wonderful dream but a dream none the less although I hope I am wrong.

That is all for today my friends but I will see you all again on Tuesday. Have a marvelous day all CIAO4NOW!!!!!