"The Pig Roast Is Almost Over"

If you go to USAspending.gov, you can see in detail how the U.S. federal government spends its money: which private companies receive the biggest contracts (Boeing: $12 billion), which state agencies receive the most federal assistance, and so on. Want an easy way to check how much of your tax money goes to your Congresspeople's campaign donors? Now you have it.

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...USASpending.gov brings federal spending into the Internet age. It’s the place to go, for example, if you’re interested in how much the government spent last year on “consultants” or the number of federal contracts given to the company owned by your congressman’s biggest contributor. There are innumerable reasons why the establishment of USASpending.gov is a milestone, but two of them are particularly worthy of mention. First, Coburn and Obama drew little attention when they introduced FFATA and the bill mostly flew under the radar as it progressed in Congress. But when passage became a real possibility, the Old Bulls in Congress — ever jealous of their ability to spend our tax dollars on their pet causes — used every legislative trick in the book trying to stop FFATA. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., even placed secret holds on the measure, stalling it for weeks in the Senate. But they were unmasked by Porkbusters.org, an Internet-based coalition from across the ideological spectrum. Porkbusters.org sparked thousands of phone calls and e-mails asking senators if they were responsible for the secret holds. Stevens and Byrd soon gave up and within a few weeks Bush signed the bill into law. Second, it may take a few years before the good effects of USASpending.gov are fully felt, but here’s fair warning to the old-school politicians who thrive on pork-barrel politics: It’s no longer just the dwindling ranks of the mainstream media covering the big spenders. Starting today, legions of citizens and professional watchdogs have access to an unprecedented amount of information and data on where tax dollars are going. And they’re all connected via the Internet.