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Friday, July 21, 2006
New Opportunity to Support Access to Gov't Information
Over the past few months, OMB Watch has been working closely with Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL) on a bill to create a free, searchable database available to the public containing information on all federal spending - both grants and contracts. This legislation (S. 2590) continues to move forward in the Senate and OMB Watch remains strongly supportive of it (see the OMB Watch website for more information on the bill and to access previous coverage on this by OMB Watch. You can also read recent media coverage of the effort.)
New Effort for Transparency and Disclosure Underway
To further support transparency and disclosure of budget information, OMB Watch is joining with the National Taxpayers Union to rally support for a legislative effort to require posting of all departmental budget justifications online (excluding any sensitive security information). Budget justifications are contain details of agencies' spending priorities and outline budget allocations from previous years, and are compiled by federal offices and agencies for the congressional appropriations committees in order to help them develop their budgets each year. Currently, there is no way for the public to access these documents and no reason for them not to be available.
Please consider signing-on to this joint letter supporting the disclosure of agency budget justifications. This is a basic good government proposal that will help to bring about a more effective and efficient government.
Deadline for Sign-ons is next Tuesday, July 25 at 6:00 pm. Please email Adam Hughes at ahughes@ombwatch.org to sign your organization on.
Posted by Adam Hughes
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