American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act)

Commentary: The Case for a Second Stimulus

If there's one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it's that the economy has seen better days. Indeed, looking at various employment statistics, it's hard for anyone to express optimism about the nation's economic condition. The national unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, and the number of workers unemployed for 27 or more weeks is at an historic high. The nation's present economic state has provided ammunition to critics who argue that the Recovery Act, the $787 billion package designed to stimulate the economy, has failed. The current economic situation has prompted calls from others for a second stimulus.

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More Action Is Needed to Improve Recovery Act Data Quality

The Recovery Act may be a great step forward for spending transparency, but it is also exposing the problems of obtaining quality recipient reporting. Two new government reports show that recent revisions and additions to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rules on recipient reporting are not necessarily "magic bullets" for addressing reporting errors. The reports also make clear that ensuring that recipients have a clear understanding of existing guidance is a crucial aspect of any data quality improvement effort.

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Commentary: Celebrating One of the Recovery Act's Legacies: Transparency

Feb. 17 marked the one-year anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly called the Recovery Act. Both political parties celebrated the occasion with partisan attacks. Democrats heralded the act as having saved the nation's economy, while Republicans savaged it for being an expensive government program with little to show by way of jobs. While the two parties can argue over how effective the act actually has been, both can agree on one thing: the lasting legacy of the Recovery Act’s transparency provisions.

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The Recovery Act Spending That Wasn't There

Recovery Act recipient reporting has received a great deal of attention in the media, and while some of this coverage has been critical (reporting on non-existent congressional districts or ZIP codes, unreliable job creation numbers, etc.), many news articles portray comprehensive oversight of the act because of transparency requirements in the law. However, approximately two-thirds of the spending in the Recovery Act bypasses these requirements, leading to a dearth of information about how the money is being spent. As time passes and Recovery Act spending continues, this lack of data is becoming more apparent, as highlighted by a recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) report showing that millions of dollars in Recovery Act tax breaks are vulnerable to tax fraud.

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About Those Recovery Act Job Numbers

Prominently displayed in a large, green font on the front page of Recovery.gov is the number 640,329. That is the number of jobs created or saved as reported by the recipients of some $150 billion in Recovery Act funds. The placement, font size, and accompanying press release from the White House have drawn immense attention and copious media reports. However, questions about the number's accuracy degrade the count's usefulness as a gauge of the economic impact of the Recovery Act. The figure itself remains only a fragment of the information that describes how the act is improving the economy and helping unemployed workers.

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Poor Data Quality and Lack of Website Functionality Hobble Recovery Act Recipient Reports

The release of the first round of Recovery Act contracts spending data marks the first time that recipients of federal funding have been required to report to the federal government on their use of the funds in a timely and transparent manner. This represents an important milestone in government transparency and accountability. However, the poor data quality and Recovery.gov's limited functionality hinder the promise of a new era of fiscal transparency – at least for this round of recipient reporting.

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Focus on Implementation Lacking in Hearing on Recovery Act

On July 8, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on the implementation of the Recovery Act to date. The hearing included testimony from a number of government officials and raised concerns that some members of Congress may lack a clear understanding of the challenges of implementing and tracking a large-scale economic recovery effort. As implementation progresses and new decisions are made, better oversight of these developments will become even more important.

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Agencies Reporting Communications with Federally Registered Lobbyists

Updated April 20, 2010

President Barack Obama's March 20 memo restricts communications between federally registered lobbyists and executive branch employees on use of Recovery Act funds and requires disclosure of written communications. A closer examination of the summaries of lobbyist contacts with federal agencies shows that there are few online postings of those communications; some agencies have not posted any contacts at all.

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Agency Plans Add Another Element of Accountability to Recovery Act Spending

On May 17, the Obama administration released the next wave of Recovery Act information, this time by posting Agency Recovery Plans on Recovery.gov. These plans, which are mandated by the Recovery Act, include broad, agency-wide plans and program-specific plans on how each federal agency intends to expend its appropriated Recovery Act funds. Like other Recovery Act-related data dissemination, this latest phase in Recovery Act spending transparency marks another move in the right direction but needs some refinement.

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Coalition for an Accountable Recovery Submits Comments on Recovery.gov Guidance Memo

On April 17, the Coalition for an Accountable Recovery (CAR) submitted its comments on the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) April 3 memo, "Updated Implementing Guidance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009." The memo is a supplement to a previous set of guidelines issued Feb. 18 to federal agencies on the implementation of the Recovery Act. CAR notes that OMB’s efforts are laudable and that the guidance is helpful in advancing transparency and accountability with regard to Recovery Act spending. However, the coalition also argues that the guidance still needs modification for meaningful transparency and accountability to be realized.

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