Despite the rest of the world learning about it on Wednesday, last Friday the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RAT Board) posted a press release announcing the General Services Administration's awarding of the contract to redesign Recovery.gov. Notwithstanding its late appearance, the post is definitely a good thing, since it is the first time Recovery.gov has even acknowledged that the current site is effectively Recovery.gov 1.0. Before this, the redesign has never even been mentioned on the site.

On July 8th, Peter R. Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote a letter to Reps. George Miller (D-CA), Charles Rangel (D-NY), and Henry Waxman (D-CA), to express the Administration's support for the policy changes that have been discussed thus far.  After commending their efforts thus far to make policies deficit-neutral, Orszag writes that these changes are not enough.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities just put out an interesting article called "Correcting Five Myths about the Stimulus Bill." The piece looks at such myths as the recent rise in unemployment means the recovery has failed, and that the Recovery Act was not designed to help states fill in budget gaps. It's a quick read, but anyway, it's always good to take a step back every once and a while to look at the bigger picture.