In addition to the government websites I found yesterday, I’ve also found several private sites that contain data about government spending.
usgovernmentspending.com is the best put together site I’ve seen. Their chart system really give you a chance to see things on the Macro level. However, it’s not exactly a non-partisan or bi-partisan effort. It’s run by Christopher Chantrill, who has a definite right-leaning tilt. This means I’ll want to make sure his numbers or presentations aren’t somehow spun to the right.
The Heritage Foundation, another right-leaning organization, has a lot of budget numbers and charts.
The Cato Institute has a lot of studies about federal spending. Like the Heritage foundation though, it is a right-leaning organization so will have to watch their analysis for spin.
Here’s a site that seems pretty non-partisan: Fed Spending, but by their own admission, they seem to admit that the government site USAspending.gov is better:
In Sept. 2006, President Bush signed into law the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590), which was co-sponsored by Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL). The new law mandates that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) create and maintain a searchable public database of all federal spending, not unlike FedSpending.org. In fact, OMB built the government website using the FedSpending.org software platform as a foundation. OMB launched the government site at USASpending.gov in December of 2007. Because both sites utilize the FedSpending.org software, the search functions and look and feel of the two website are very similar.
There are differences though. The government website has broadened the scope of information and is required to cover all federal spending, while FedSpending.org is limited to information contained within the FPDS and FAADS government databases (See here for data that is not included on FedSpending.org). The government website also is more timely because the new law requires that data be updated every 30 days. (FedSpending.org will only be updated every six months.) The government website will also be expanded by 2009 to include subcontracts and subgrants data.
About.com has a nice page about the budget. I think I can use that not only for numbers, but as a primer to understanding the numbers.
Also found a blog that seems to have a pretty good handle on federal spending: http://usbudget.blogspot.com/
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a treasure trove of numbers and analysis. It holds the distinction of being the only left-leaning organization that studies the budget. Therefore, just like the right-leaning organizations, I will have to be careful not to fall for the spin and, instead, just look at the numbers only.
I found dozens upon dozens of other websites and blogs that talk about the budget, but these sites and the government sites I found yesterday seem to have real actual number and\or information I need to understand the budget. The rest either don’t publish the numbers, or if they do, they’re just a rehash of other places. In any case, I think I have plenty of information sources to get me started.
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