
Recovery.gov has gone live  - babyshake
http://www.recovery.gov/
======
dpifke
I think the last item on the FAQ is probably the most interesting for hackers:

 _Q: Is the spending data on recovery.gov available in a format (like XML)
that developers can use to create mashups and gadgets?_

 _A: Not at this time. But, as new systems are developed to capture the
allocations and expenditures under the Act, we plan to make that data
available in exportable form._

~~~
CalmQuiet
I find it refreshing that they even _recognize_ this question: a stark
contrast to past federal "know-nothing" approaches to hacking & tech.

~~~
byrneseyeview
I'm glad their words are starting to catch up to the Republican party's deeds:

<http://www.gop.gov/api>

Open, competitive government is probably a good thing; the fact that different
parts of the government are competing to see who can be more open is even
better.

~~~
acgourley
Just a note about that API that I read on a mailing list:

"So far the GOP API is useless, most of the methods do not work and the ones
that do are still having issues.

I've spoken to the gop.gov team about this and they informed me they were
forced to launch before these features were ready.

Most of the data they offer though seems like it'll be member/bill data that
is already widely available"

~~~
byrneseyeview
I knew we could live up to our reputation! (Thanks for the update)

------
jmatt
This is part of the bill^.

 _SEC. 1201. TRANSPARENCY REQUIREMENTS. (b) (1) (A)

Each such agency shall notify the public of funds obligated to particular
infrastructure investments by posting the notification on the website
Recovery.gov._

[Continues from there... details at SEC. 1226. RECOVERY.GOV.]

This site improves accessibility but not transparency. All congressional bills
are already readily available... but it's limited to watchdogs and those few
that are motivated enough to find and read them.

^ <http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/RecoveryBill01-15-09.pdf>

EDIT: Formatting.

~~~
indiejade
Coincidentally, the Wiki on TransparentAccounting.org also went "live" today:
<http://www.transparentaccounting.org/wiki/us>

The words "accountability" and "transparency" (from Recovery.org) do seem to
be used much more frequently by the Obama Administration than its predecessor.
This makes me think that the wiki just might work.

I don't know how much work needs to be done on a wiki before blowing the
kazoos and writing the press releases. What might be the best way to go about
building the site? Starting with abbreviations seems like a good idea, as it
seems both techies and government people love the acronyms.

Any and all thoughts / ideas / opinions are welcome.

------
euroclydon
Why do Tax Cuts contain $61B for Protecting the Vulnerable when there is
already a Protecting the Vulnerable category with $81B?

Also, if Obama were really interested in transparency, he would direct the
Treasury and Federal Reserve to comply with the FOIA requests made by the
media regarding the TARP and the liquidity injections.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Because that lets politicians talk about $BIGNUM in "tax relief" and also
$BIGNUM2 in "protecting the vulnerable"?

Another fun fact, obscured by the headlines, is that "tax relief" includes
wealth transfers from taxpayers to non-taxpayers
(<http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/refundablecredit.asp>).

------
ckinnan
Ironic that Obama's approach to tech is open source and decentralized, but his
approach to the economy is command and control.

------
thesethings
Aside: I hear via twitter that it's running Drupal.

~~~
lisp_padawan
Looks like it, there's mention of drupal in a javascript call near the bottom
of the source. Nice clean html too from a quick glance - wonder if this is the
same team as did Obama's election site, similar visual style. Good stuff.

~~~
cjoh
It isn't. Blue State would never use Drupal. Blue State uses Expression Engine
and their own suite of tools.

~~~
thesethings
Hmm. The URLs are pretty tell-tale Drupal:

* <http://www.recovery.gov/modules/pathauto/pathauto.js> * <http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/impact>

(Though Drupal is fully capable of having pretty URLs that would have made
that less visible.)

~~~
cjoh
Oh, it is very clearly Drupal. That was not the intent of the comment. The
intent of the comment was that it _is_ Drupal, and thus Blue State Digital
(the BarackObama.com web vendor) was not behind the construction of the site.

~~~
thesethings
Ah. Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. I've learned a lot about these kinds
of web sites from your submissions/posts, keep 'em coming!

------
sam_in_nyc
I don't have much to say about the actual plan, but it's just so nice to see
this stuff online.

~~~
rrhyne
Agreed. If the transparency Obama claims materializes, it could end the
grafting and pork.

Also, this website could keep a handful of people employed! Yay!

~~~
anthonyrubin
"If the transparency Obama claims materializes, it could end the grafting and
pork."

Have you read much about this bill?

~~~
ryanmnly
Even published on the recovery.gov site, it is still difficult to hone in on
specific information. The bill is just entirely to big to be easily
"accessible." Some type of smart search engine for it would be handy.

~~~
anthonyrubin
How confident does this make you that anyone read and understood this bill
before voting for it?

~~~
niels_olson
You guys understand that acts are essentially patches to apply to the US Code,
right? Literally, they read "insert, in paragraph 5a, after 'is the domain
of', 'Hacker News and'

The GPO, however, only prints the full code once every six (six!) years.
They've got a room full of people reading and double-checking that they're
writing exactly what's in the bills. Very archaic. Someone should apply a
modern versioning system so the code is in black and the effects of bills are
in red (and blue and green, like alexa or Google Trends does graphs, but with
text), so the public can see not just the bill, but what the changes look like
in real time. It's shouldn't be hard at all.

I'll bet someone could do this with GitHub by this weekend and have a site up
by the end of the month.

~~~
jedc
Very interesting... I wonder if there's a business here? Free access to the
text for the public, with premium features for people/orgs willing to pay?

~~~
krisneuharth
Funny you should mention that. I've been working with a friend on something
along this line for the last two weeks. We are looking to announce a beta
launch here sometime next week. The site is going to be called Democritique.
Stay tuned.

~~~
jedc
Sounds interesting; certainly look forward to hearing more.

~~~
ryanmnly
I'd like to let everyone know that we have launched our Fourth Branch,
<http://www.fourthbranch.us>, for use and testing. It took us longer than
planned to move to production, but our initial version is considerably better
than what we previously intended.

In a nutshell, Fourth Branch will act exactly as that: The fourth branch of
government. The emphasis on publicizing legislation and providing government
transparency has lead us to develop this. Unlike anything to date, we are
going to utilize proven social networking practices and focus it on
legislation and issues that require public input.

We are looking for any and all comments, criticism and feedback to help us
develop quickly. Thanks!

------
greyhat
Read the fine print(!):

* Tax Relief - includes $15 B for Infrastructure and Science, $61 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $25 B for Education and Training and $22 B for Energy, so total funds are $126 B for Infrastructure and Science, $142 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $78 B for Education and Training, and $65 B for Energy.

So the largest bubble, tax relief, actually includes the other bubbles?
Wouldn't the normal expectation that if there is one large bubble marked tax
relief that it actually represent tax relief and not science spending? Or is
that just an almost transparent attempt to pander to people who want tax cuts?
Help me understand this!

------
nazgulnarsil
transparent government isn't really a solution unless people are willing to
act on the data. but we have already shown that this isn't the case. when
people hear of corruption are the people involved outed? for the most part no.

~~~
TFrancis
I don't think that's fair. Exposing government data in general will allow
people (citizens, consumers, whatever...) to see _systemic_ corruption. Often
when we hear of corruption, it is represented as a single point (politician X,
company y, etc...) of failure in the democratic system.

Exposing data like thins allows the citizenry to be data driven instead of
anecdotal and emotional. I think that's the important break from past
governmental practices.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
maybe young people see it as a single failure. most people over the age of 30
know better.

besides, what is the punishment model of our democracy? voting the other party
in? yeah, that works.

I vote for a return of the public gallows.

~~~
TFrancis
I think you and I are in agreement. The feedback mechanism of the republic is
broken because there is no punishment. You are correct when you say, "most
people over the age of 30 know better." However, I believe that people under
30 understand that too. The difference with making data publicly available is
that we can _quantify_ how systemic the problem is. Punishment to our
representatives is difficult the same way it is difficult to punish most white
collar crimes--it's easy to perform complected book cooking in ways that most
can't follow. Making the data available will allow people with those abilities
to monitor activity in the public. Or put another way, "Given enough eyeballs,
all bugs are shallow."

I think once the hard evidence is in we'll see less and less of the party
support mechanisms because the corruption can be so easily proven that
congress critters will scatter once a little light is shown on their dirty
deeds. Then new (possibly younger) data-driven representation will take their
place. In my rough back-of-no-envelope estimation, this will take at least a
generation.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
to break this down: you think that showing that the _degree_ of corruption is
constant (systemic corruption) will have a greater impact on the public
conscious than traditional methods of exposing gov. corruption because the
traditional methods have so much variance.

this could very well be true. I will be watching developments in this area.

------
greyhat
The design of this and whitehouse.gov drive me crazy. The gratuitous use of
italics randomly in headings always seems to emphasize the wrong part of the
sentence. Right on the front page of this site we have "Your money _AT_ work".
Now why on earth would you emphasize the least important word in the phrase?
It makes it sound like someone who can't quite make out some handwriting is
narrating the page. Maybe a minor nitpick that not everyone notices, but in my
case I find it really detracts from the readability and professional veneer
these sites are trying to achieve.

------
adatta02
Unfortunately "Q: Is the spending data on recovery.gov available in a format
(like XML) that developers can use to create mashups and gadgets? A: Not at
this time. But, as new systems are developed to capture the allocations and
expenditures under the Act, we plan to make that data available in exportable
form"

[http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/frequently-asked-
question...](http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/frequently-asked-questions#17)

------
newmediaclay
Very cool site. They're using opensource Javascript from MIT's Simile Project
to power the timeline at the bottom. Good incorporation of an existing,
powerful opensource resource:
[http://www.newmediacampaigns.com/page/recoverygovs-
javascrip...](http://www.newmediacampaigns.com/page/recoverygovs-javascript-
timeline-graduated-from-mit)

~~~
rwebb
i got it to go past 4000 BC. any idea when it ends?

~~~
babyshake
Hey, you can never be too careful when it comes to economic recoveries.

For instance, what if Bernie Madoff is secretly plotting to use a frozen
donkey wheel to make us travel through time?

Yeah. That's what I thought.

------
bdittmer
This is transparency after the fact. The actual bill was only available for
review for something like 10 hours before it was voted on and passed. 1100
pages in 10 hours? Great.

This information should available on ALL bills at least a week before the bill
is voted on by congress. I for one am appalled at how this thing was driven
through.

------
greyhat
For a much more insightful breakdown, <http://stimuluswatch.org/> has a pretty
interesting listing that allows people to vote, comment, and offer arguments
for and against individual items.

------
jonknee
Neat to see all the open source software being used (Apache, PHP, MySQL,
Drupal, jQuery, MIT Simile Timeline, etc). And once again YouTube is front and
center.

Mix in an API and they'll be rocking.

------
gills
"Mission Accomplished"

...

