American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Web Info
Finding Out What Happens to $787 Billion
Mar 2, 2009
For Americans wishing to try to keep track of their money there are several web resources available. Perhaps the best place to start would be with the law itself.
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
This act is the linchpin of the government effort to keep the current recession from becoming a depression and response to the economic crisis. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is available for download as a searchable pdf file. It is 407 pages long and touches all of American society. It covers:
- AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES
- COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES
- DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
- ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT
- FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT
- DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
- INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
- DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES
- LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
- MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND VETERANS AFFAIRS AND RELATED AGENCIES
- STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS
- TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
- HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
- STATE FISCAL STABILIZATION FUND
- TAX PROVISIONS
- ASSISTANCE FOR UNEMPLOYED WORKERS AND STRUGGLING FAMILIES
- PREMIUM ASSISTANCE FOR COBRA BENEFITS
- MEDICARE AND MEDICAID HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY;MEDICARE PROVISIONS
- BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY OPPORTUNITIES PROGRAM
- LIMITS ON EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION
There are broad mandates allowing executive agencies to spend billions of dollars without a great deal of direction regarding specific priorities. President Obama mentioned many of these items during his first speech to a joint session of Congress. An additional element of the program includes incentives for Home Mortgage Loan Modifications.
Government Websites for Taxpayer Review of Spending
In 2006 Congress passed a law entitled The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. The mandate of the act was for the government to make available to the general public information regarding money spent by the government with private contractors. The result was usaspending.org.
The data here goes back to 2000. A taxpayer can examine contractors, contract amounts, federal grants and federal loans. The information can be broken out by state and by congressional district. It might be interesting to match up the lists of recipients with the donors to federal election campaigns.
Recovery.gov was launched to assist taxpayers in specifically monitoring the spending of the funds allocated by the ARRA. Recovery.org is very new and deals in generalities and promises. As the $787 billion is spent recovery.org will have postings about spending details.
Since the executive branch executes laws by spending money that Congress authorized, the Congress wanted its own information regarding past and current spending and future projections. The result was the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which has its own website proving information on the following issues:
- Monthly Budget Review
- Budget Projections
- Economic Projections
- Status of Discretionary Appropriations
- Historical Budget Data
- Spreadsheets for Selected Estimates and Projections
- Glossary of Budgetary and Economic Terms
Federal Government Spending Monitored by Private Citizen Groups
OMB watch is a group that monitors federal government spending and puts together summary reports of Congressional Budget Office. The prime site in this regarding is Fedspeding.org. The raw data of the CBO is the principal source of data for federal spending, but the site has aggregation features not available from the CBO.
An additional citizen site monitoring federal spending is run by Citizens Against Government Waste. This group concentrates on identifying wasteful spending, also known as pork barrel spending. There are reports available in a searchable database on 11,610 projects promoted by members of Congress.
Becoming Informed Not Easy, but Easier than in the Past
The information on the financial activities of the federal government is more easily available than ever, but making sense of 787 billion is still difficult. The information can be accessed by citizens allowing them to make their own decisions without the filters of news analysts, but each site provides only a bit of information that must be related to other information for a taxpayer to draw conclusions. Connecting election fundraising data with spending data can paint of fuller picture of not only how tax money was spent, but also why.
