The Hill News

In February 2009 President Obama appointed me to chair the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. Our job was to prevent fraud and waste in the multi-billion dollar economic stimulus program and to establish a public website that would bring an unprecedented level of transparency to stimulus spending. Now, more than three years later, it’s clear that the Recovery Board and its oversight partners have kept fraud and waste at record lows. At the same time, Americans can easily track how their stimulus tax dollars are being spent on the Board’s website, Recovery.gov.
 
Congress now needs to consider how the lessons of the Recovery program can be applied to all of government spending. In June of 2011, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) introduced bipartisan legislation entitled the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, or DATA Act, to! accomplish this goal. On April 25th the House passed the DATA Act unanimously. It is time for the Senate to move quickly to do the same.

Read more...