Blog: The Fine Print / Revenue & Spending

Complacency Breeds Corruption in Contracting

Aug 13, 2009 by Gary Therkildsen*

Corruption

Oh, boy, this one is a doozy. If you haven't seen this yet, a WaPo article from last week detailed the incestuous, often corrupt, relationships that can exist between officials and contractors within the broken culture of government contracting, and highlighted the lengths to which agencies will go to safeguard that decayed culture.

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The CBO's Semi-Regular Social Security Update

Aug 10, 2009 by Jocelyn Yin*

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest figures on the long-term finances of Social Security. 

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CBO Monthly Budget Review: July 2009

Aug 7, 2009 by Craig Jennings

The CBO released its Monthly Budget Review for July, 2009 this morning.

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Time for Recess: An August Appropriations Update

Aug 6, 2009 by Jocelyn Yin*

As the Senate finishes up a few important matters before the August recess, including a Cash-for-Clunkers vote, it's time to take a look at what else is going on in regular Senate business.  Unfortunately, the Senate is behind schedule, and it remains unlikely that all appropriations bills will be resolved prior to the start of the new fiscal year on Oct 1.

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Progress Reporting

Aug 5, 2009 by Craig Jennings


(click to enlarge)

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Redactio Ad Absurdum

Aug 4, 2009 by Craig Jennings

We've been digging through $9.5 million Recovery.gov rewrite contract the Recovery Board has signed with Smartronix, Inc., and it is taking us surprisingly little time...because most of the information has been redacted.

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GSA Releases Recovery.gov Redesign Contract

Aug 3, 2009 by Sam Rosen-Amy

At around 9pm last Friday, July 31, the General Services Administration, on behalf of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, released the contract for Recovery.gov's redesign. The contract with Smartronix, a Maryland-based firm, initially stirred some criticism for its large price tag, $18 million over several years. This caused some groups, such as OMB Watch, to call for the publication of the contract (see our letter to the Recovery Board here).

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Cash for Clunkers the New Darling of Stimulus Dollars

Jul 31, 2009 by Jocelyn Yin*

The "Cash-for-Clunkers" (C4C) program will get an addition infusion of money, this time from stimulus funds. Passed in June, the program's purpose was to use rebates to subsidize car purchases and with the launch of the program this month, it seems Congress underestimated demand by just a little bit.

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Is the Stimulus Working?

Jul 31, 2009 by Craig Jennings

This morning, the Bureau of Economic Analyses released the latest economic growth data. In the second quarter of this year, the gross domestic product (GDP) shrank at annul rate of 1.0 percent. While this represents a slowing of the free-fall rate of economic contraction we saw in Q1 (6.4 percent), the economy has quite a ways to go before job losses become gains and wages begin ticking upward. This improvement, though, does beg the question "Is the Recovery Act working?"

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Report Shows Most States Failing to Provide Recovery Act Information Online

Jul 29, 2009 by Sam Rosen-Amy

While we here at OMB Watch have dedicated a great deal of time and effort to Recovery.gov, it's important to remember that the states themselves have Recovery Act websites. And it's just as important that these state websites are fully functioning, useful sites. Thankfully, Good Jobs First, an organization that is also part of the Coalition for An Accountable Recovery, just put out a great report today on this very subject, although it found that most state Recovery Act websites are in need of improvements.

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