Recovery.gov: Transparency of Farce?

Lovely. Right? Transparency = a web page. Sorry to burst your bubble, Mr. President, but charts and graphs indicating how the money from your American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is being distributed does nothing for actual accountability.


According to recovery.gov $81 billion is going to "Protecting the Vulnerable." Who wouldn't want that? Cold hearted, anti-American folks? Maybe, but maybe those of us that have no idea who this money helps protect. Old people are vulnerable, but so are prisoners and the LGBT community and Iraqis. Is the $81 billion going to help protect all these vulnerable people? Maybe it should, but recovery.gov isn't providing a transparent account of whether it will.

Further more, the $111 billion allocated for "Infrastructure and Science," or any of the other broad and overarching categories, neither provides an exact breakdown of funds nor specifies the individual departments, contractors or organizations that will receive the bailout money. Isn't that the level of transparency we need at this point? Especially after we've seen so many institutions misuse their bailout money -- for parties, executive bonuses, private jets (like the one you used to fly to Chicago on Valentine's Day with Michelle. Too good for the D.C. restaurants or just too indifferent to the costs your romantic dinner levied on tax payers?).