Recovery.com, the government funded site created to track the spending of government stimulus money, is celebrating it’s one year anniversary today. As this article from USA Today explains, the site has become a model for spending transparency and led to the creation of other sites such as USAspending.gov.
Of the $814 billion in government stimulus spending, there's $18 million that could forever change the way government spends money.
That's how much the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board spent to create Recovery.gov, the website that tracks where the government's stimulus money goes.
The website turns 1 year old today. While it's had a number of publicized flaws, the site already has become the template for how the government will collect and report on its spending.
On Friday, the federal government will begin requiring recipients of non-stimulus money to report to USAspending.gov where that money's going — just like the Recovery.gov does for stimulus funds.
"For good or bad, the needle has been moved by Recovery.gov," says Gary Bass, founder of OMB Watch, a non-profit group that tracks federal spending.
The requirement to make federal spending transparent started before the stimulus. In 2006, Congress required that the government create USAspending.gov — but efforts to get federal recipients to report where the money went fell almost two years behind schedule.
