American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act)

Coalition for an Accountable Recovery Submits Comments on Recovery.gov Guidance Memo

On April 17, the Coalition for an Accountable Recovery (CAR) submitted its comments on the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) April 3 memo, "Updated Implementing Guidance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009." The memo is a supplement to a previous set of guidelines issued Feb. 18 to federal agencies on the implementation of the Recovery Act. CAR notes that OMB’s efforts are laudable and that the guidance is helpful in advancing transparency and accountability with regard to Recovery Act spending. However, the coalition also argues that the guidance still needs modification for meaningful transparency and accountability to be realized.

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Recovery Transparency Meets Mixed Results

Three weeks after President Barack Obama signed into law the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), states have begun to see federal economic stimulus funds move within their borders. Behind the hundreds of billions of dollars soon to follow are some 25 federal departments, agencies, and administrations that are in charge of allocating the funds. In addition to this unprecedented level of emergency spending is a pledge by Obama to "watch the taxpayers' money with more rigor and transparency than ever." The speed at which the administration and some federal agencies have moved is impressive, even as there has been uneven implementation of transparency efforts.

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Stimulus Becomes Law; Implementation Begins

When President Barack Obama signed into law a $787 billion economic stimulus package on Feb. 17, he also approved an unprecedented set of transparency and oversight provisions. The law calls for the establishment of a Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to oversee the disbursement of more than $500 billion in federal cash outlays and a website to publicly track the spending.

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Recovery.gov

Feb 17, 2009 by Craig Jennings

It's live.

The new stimulus spending website mandated by the recently-passed (and soon-to-be-signed) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is now up and operational.

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House and(Likely?) Senate Approval of Pretty Good Stimulus Transparency

Feb 13, 2009 by Craig Jennings

UPDATE: The Senate has approved the bill 60-38.

UPDATE 2 (2/17/2009): President Obama has signed ARRA into law.

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AMT in Stimulus Forces Better Tax Provisions Out

Feb 12, 2009 by Craig Jennings

At Tax Vox, Howard Gleckman casts righteous aspersion on Congress's decision to include of an AMT patch in the stimulus bill.

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Senate Approves Stimulus; AMT Patch Hitches a Ride

Feb 10, 2009 by Craig Jennings

After a contentious debate period, the Senate voted (61-37) last night to end debate on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (HR 1), or "ARRA." Today, the Senate moved to approve the bill, with an identical vote tally.

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Senate Considers Stimulus Bill with Weaker Transparency Language

Feb 3, 2009 by Craig Jennings

The Senate is currently debating the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (S. 336), (or just "ARRA" or close friends and associates). And as we noted last week, the tax cuts and spending in the House version (HR 1) were receiving wide press attention, but we were more interested in the bill's transparency and accountability language. Today, we turn the spotlight on the analogue provisions in the Senate bill.

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Win $100 for Assessing the Stimulus Bill

Jan 23, 2009 by Craig Jennings

WashingtonWatch.com is sponsoring a contest to call out the the best and the worst of the stimulus bill that is making its way through Congress.

Your goal is to identify spending in the economic stimulus bill that will do a really good job of stimulating the economy, or a really bad job. A $100 prize will go to the best comment identifying good stimulus spending - the spending that will do the most to get the economy on its feet - and another $100 to the best comment identifying bad stimulus spending - spending that will just fall in a hole or even make the U.S. economy worse.

Take any part of the stimulus bill and write a short case for why it's good or bad. (Recommended: search the bill for "$" - there are more than 350 of them.) Pick anything - from an entire government department to the smallest program. You can even pick a non-spending provision in the bill that you think will do good or bad.

The Budget Brigade's own Adam Hughes will be one of the judges, so start sending those ~~checks~~ entries in to me WashingtonWatch.com!

Image by Flickr user littleli1985 used under a Creative Commons license.

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First Look at House Stimulus Legislation

Jan 15, 2009 by Craig Jennings

Update:
The House Appropriations Committee has released the legislative text of the stimulus bill.

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