Coburn praised for database bill
By Chris Casteel
The Oklahoman
September 15, 2006
WASHINGTON - A White House budget official Thursday praised Sen. Tom Coburn's legislation to create a database of government spending and promised to work on creating it.
Clay Johnson, deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget, called the bill "a giant step forward." President Bush is expected to sign the bill, which received final House and Senate approval Wednesday.
"Transparency gives you accountability, and accountability gives you results," Johnson said. He appeared at a Capitol Hill news conference with Coburn, R-Muskogee, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who co-authored the bill.
The legislation calls for an online database allowing the public to search for recent federal contracts, grants and loans. The government must have the database operating by January 2008.
The federal government has some information online about grant and contract recipients, but those databases have been criticized for being hard to navigate and out of date.
The bill by Coburn and Obama seeks to create a single comprehensive database on a public Web site listing all entities receiving federal money, including the name of the entity and its location, the amount of the award and the purpose, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The effort is expected to cost about $15 million over five years.
"Most of the data needed to build this exists," Johnson said. "It's going to take more time and effort than money" to set up the Web site.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said Thursday the government doles out $300 billion a year in grants and contracts to an estimated 30,000 organizations.
"And there's no real way today to check that," he said.
Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said, "This is about giving taxpayers timely information about how their tax dollars are being spent."
Coburn said he expects the public, including media and Internet "bloggers," to feed the data into computer programs that will pick up spending trends.
"All sorts of wonderful things are going to come out" through analyses of the data," Coburn said.
Obama once again gave credit to bloggers for pressuring lawmakers into passing the bill, which had been stalled by some senators' secret "holds" on consideration. Bloggers and outside groups -- ranging from the Family Research Council to Common Cause -- contacted senators' offices, held news conferences and issued press releases. Coburn said newspapers across the country ran editorials supporting the bill.
"It was a perfect storm" that created the momentum for passage, he said.
Bush said in a statement, "This legislation demonstrates Congress' commitment to giving the American people access to timely and accurate information about how their tax dollars are spent. This bill builds on existing administration initiatives to help ensure federal agencies clearly reflect how they spend the taxpayers' money."
|
