Yesterday, a group of organizations, including OMB Watch, submitted concerns with the high-value datasets published on Data.gov in compliance with the requirements of the Open Government Directive (OGD) issued on Dec. 8. The OGD required that agencies submit at least three high value datasets within 45 days through Data.gov.   These groups outlined the major problems with the site and its implementation thus far.  I have summarized these issues below.

Last Thursday, the Senate voted, 60-39, along partisan lines to pass legislation raising the nation's borrowing capacity to $14.3 trillion. During debate of the bill, senators rejected an amendment to establish a commission to make recommendations to reduce the deficit, but agreed to an amendment reinstituting statutory pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules with some exemptions.

In case you missed it, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its 2010 Budget Outlook, its yearly look at the health of the federal budget. CBO's director, Doug Elmendorf, provides the basics of the report:

CBO projects, that if current laws and policies remained unchanged, the federal budget would show a deficit of $1.35 trillion for fiscal year 2010. At 9.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), that deficit would be slightly smaller than the shortfall of 9.9 percent of GDP ($1.4 trillion) posted in 2009.

Following up on Craig's post earlier this evening, I wanted to point out some of the really good points that Spencer Ackerman over at the Washington Independent and Matt Yglesias over at Think Progress have been making all day about President Obama's recently announced spending freeze. Ackerman asks why in the world defense spending should go unaffected and Yglesias adds that, while there are reasons to treat various kinds of spending and taxes differently, "the security / non-security distinction doesn’t hold up ... at all."