USAspending.gov is a database of spending by the

United States federal government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...

History

Around the time of the

Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (S. 2590) is an Act of Congress that requires the full disclosure to the public of all entities or organizations receiving federal funds beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2007. The webs ...

's passage, OMB Watch, a government watchdog group, was developing a site that would do essentially everything the legislation required. Gary Bass, director of OMB Watch, contacted

Robert Shea Robert Joseph Shea (February 14, 1933 – March 10, 1994) was an American novelist and former journalist best known as co-author with Robert Anton Wilson of the science fantasy trilogy '' Illuminatus!'' It became a cult success and was later turn ...

, associate director of the OMB, offering to help with development of the new site. Shea was initially reluctant to collaborate with Bass, in part because OMB Watch is typically critical of the OMB, but eventually it was determined that the government site would be based on what OMB Watch was developing, with the group being paid $600,000 for their technology. In 2008, the government's site offered the same data, API, and (for the most part) documentation as the OMB Watch site, fedspending.org. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 delegated responsibility for creating the website to the

Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). The office's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, while it also examines agency pro ...

. The 2011 United States federal budget reduced funding for the Electronic Government Fund, from which USASpending.gov drew its funding. The budget had a small increase for the fund in 2012. The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act) established common standards for financial data provided by all government agencies and expanded the amount of data that agencies must provide to USASpending.gov. On May 9, 2017, Steven Mnuchin, the

United States Secretary of the Treasury The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...

, announced that Treasury updated the site, providing a much broader view of government spending. 18F contributed to development of the revised site.

References

External links

USASpending.gov
– official government spending database {{US-gov-stub Fact-checking websites Government procurement in the United States Government services web portals in the United States

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links