Restitutor Orbis

Here is a great new site, further evidence that Obama is returning transparency to government. Despite repeated GOP claims that things are being hidden, Obama is making unprecedented efforts to put information in front of the readers and viewers. There is no reason in the world any American must remain ignorant about what the government is doing. It's not his fault Rush Limbaugh can't figure out how to search a pdf file! As Media Matters reported on February 13th:

Summary: Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that Democrats "have reformatted the [economic recovery] bill -- they've made it a PDF file when they posted it. ... And, so, you can read every page, but you cannot keyword search it. It's not a text file as legislation normally is as posted on these public websites. They don't want anybody knowing what's in this." In fact, as Adobe Systems notes of PDFs: "You can run a search using either the Search window or the Find toolbar. In either case, Reader searches the PDF body text, layers, form fields, and digital signatures."

Yes...incredible, isn't it? The voice of the GOP can't use a pdf file. No surprise given how anti-science and anti-intellectual both Rush and his party are. But on to the great site I mentioned above: Recovery.gov. The site, we are told, will offer:

• Education: Explain the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act;


• Transparency: Show how, when, and where the money is spent;


• Accountability: Provide data that will allow citizens to evaluate the Act’s progress and provide feedback.

The site tells us:

The site will include information about Federal grant awards and contracts as well as formula grant allocations. Federal agencies will provide data on how they are using the money, and eventually, prime recipients of Federal funding will provide information on how they are using their Federal funds. On our end, we will use interactive graphics to illustrate where the money is going, as well as estimates of how many jobs are being created, and where they are located. And there will be search capability to make it easier for you to track the funds.

The first incarnation of Recovery.gov features projections for how, when, and where the funds will be spent -- which states and sectors of the economy are due to receive what proportion of the funds. As money starts to flow, far more data will become available.

I look forward to more information being posted on this site. I wish Bush had thought to put some controls in place before he left office instead of finding new and interesting ways to screw Obama and booby trap his administration. At least there is some accountability now as well as transparency! This is a positive step. It's not that the plan is perfect, it's not that Obama and his team haven't slipped up. But they're under such pressure and the GOP is applying a magnifying glass to every little action, making a stink about everything and lying abundantly about it at the same time.