USASpending.gov short of data on $619 billion worth of grants and awards

Washington Post ^ | 8-5-2014 | Nancy Scola

[Citizen Zed]

Launched in December 2007, USASpending.gov was meant as a way of tapping modern technology to hand the American public the means to track what the federal government spends. But a new report from the Government Accountability Office found that, in 2012 at least, more than $619 billion in federal awards that should be accounted for on the site weren't.

Agencies, GAO found, are generally reporting on the contracts that they hand out. What's missing from the site are grants and awards, a range of federal spending that covers everything from agricultural development to research on new naval reconnaissance. The absent data represents a considerable slice of the trillion dollars that the U.S. government spends on grants, loans and similar programs in a year. (To compile the "known universe" of award data, GAO says, researchers consulted the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance and the Public Budget Database.)

[Citizen Zed]

Worst transparency ever.

[GeronL]

If you ever wondered where leftist groups get much of their funding.... the government.

[Chode]

HDD crashed... right???

[W.]

With all the dough that keeps coming up ‘missing’ I begin to suspect most everyone in government is involved in looting the treasury. There needs to be accountability at all levels and you ought to be able to account where that fat bank account came from or forfeit it. Makes me want to vomit.