Posted on 07/09/2009 3:05:33 PM PDT by james.richardson
Reminiscent of the no-bid, cost-plus contracts awarded in the Bush administration to defense contractors, ABC News reported last night the Obama Administration awarded a 5 year $18 million contract to Smartronix, a Maryland-based IT firm with connections to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, for the redesign of Recovery.gov.
Launched in February to track the expenditures of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Recovery.gov was to be the pinnacle of web-enabled transparency, according to President Barack Obama.
“The site is the tip of the iceberg for the effort that will go into taking spending tracking and accountability to the next level,” one administration official said of their intended level of transparency.
But now, it seem, the administration has failed to deliver on two pledges central to the Obama campaign’s rhetoric: fiscal responsibility and unrivaled transparency.
An acerbic Ed Morrissey asks, “Since when does it cost $18 million for a website, even one with a database requiring updates on a quarterly basis?”
Not often.
FedSpending.org, launched in October 2006 with a meager three-year $334,272 grant from the Sunlight Foundation, is a voluminous online database of all federal grants and contracts. And, unlike Recovery.gov, the website monitors the entire federal budget, and does so at a fraction of the projected cost of Recovery.gov.
Of course, the revelation that the private sector outperforms the federal government is not new. Recovery.org, a project of Onvia, monitors the flow of recovery funds from the federal government to private businesses in real-time, unlike its overpriced government counterpart which reports spending 100 days after-the-fact, thereby enabling wasteful or fraudulent spending.
Onvia’s CEO Mike Pickett estimated in May his company spent approximately $20,000 to build Recovery.org’s tracking infrastructure, a far cry from the inflated contract awarded by Obama’s White House.
By contrast, spending $18 million on redesigning an already-functioning website makes Ted Stevens’ $315 million “Bridge to Nowhere” project appear like a fiscally-sound endeavor.
Assuming, however, that the White House got a bargain on Recovery.gov’s redesign, the public is still, largely, in the dark on both how and where that $18 million will be spent, which, in and of itself, is comically ironic when one considers the intended aim of the website, that is, to provide information to the public to monitor stimulus spending.
Assuming, as the generous people we are, again that the White House got a bargain on Recovery.gov’s redesign and now that Smartronix will make the rebuilding process open and transparent, there is still the troubling issue of why. Why was Smartronix awarded the contract?
The Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso notes an important political connection between the Maryland-based firm and Congressman Hoyer as a potential explanation. Smartronix’s President and Vice President have together given $19,000 to Hoyer’s campaign coffers since 1999, according to FEC reports.
You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours make sure you get a $18 million contract to redesign a government website.
Uneasy with the prospect of the White House awarding offensively high contracts to the politically well-connected, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele goes in for the kill.
“Vice President Biden warned us that there would be ‘waste’ in the stimulus bill. The Obama administration is devoting $18 million dollars to create a government website to show Americans just where their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent. This is unreal and outrageous.”
“If the Obama administration is willing to devote $18 million in taxpayer dollars to a website, imagine what government-run health care will charge taxpayers for an MRI,” he said.
Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.
Nothing like Eighteen Million Dollars for Nothing yo help the bottom line and employee moral! Ehh! Stinks the High Heavens!! and enjoy the looting amd plundering of America from your pile silver:-)
I look forward to seeing what $18 million buys the government — I know what I could do with a fraction of that.
You left out the $3 Billion in ACORN and another $2-3 Billion in Highjacked State Funds like in PA.NJ, and CA that flowed to OBOZO under the table and another $3-4 Billion in FREE MEDIA PROPAGANDA Grom NBC,ABC and CBS!!!
And them the Village Idiot almost LOST except McPAIN Saved Him by suspending his campaign and NOT SUPPORTING SARAH PALIN!! OBOZO IS A LOOSER HIS WHOLE LIFE, Except for this Freak Accident!!
The $18MM site redesign is the tip of the iceberg of the level of corruption, fraud and waste of tax payer $$$'s. Chump change!
How on earth does the redesign of the Porkulus I website cost $18 million?? LMAO...They can start with tracking and accounting for the wasted $18 mil to redesign a frickin website. The corruption, fraud and outright theft of taxpayer's dollars is just revolting. PIGS!
That logo should be on a t-shirt.
Oh boy. This is good ad material.
...the Obama Administration awarded a 5 year $18 million contract to Smartronix, a Maryland-based IT firm with connections to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, for the redesign of Recovery.gov. Launched in February to track the expenditures of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009... the administration has failed to deliver on two pledges central to the Obama campaign's rhetoric: fiscal responsibility and unrivaled transparency... FedSpending.org, launched in October 2006 with a meager three-year $334,272 grant from the Sunlight Foundation, is a voluminous online database of all federal grants and contracts. And, unlike Recovery.gov, the website monitors the entire federal budget, and does so at a fraction of the projected cost of Recovery.gov. Of course, the revelation that the private sector outperforms the federal government is not new. Recovery.org, a project of Onvia, monitors the flow of recovery funds from the federal government to private businesses in real-time, unlike its overpriced government counterpart which reports spending 100 days after-the-fact, thereby enabling wasteful or fraudulent spending.
You left out the $3 Billion
__________
I thought it was 4.5 BILLION.
ZOWWL! YEP! I stand corrected with my deep apoloies! Add another 1.5 Billion dollars to the cossst of buying the White House, the Ultimate Pay to Play Scam!
Add another 1.5 Billion dollars to the cossst of buying the White House, the Ultimate Pay to Play Scam!
_____________
You got that right!!! Does anyone think for one minute if he hadn’t bought the MSM and had 750 MILLION dollars that that POS would be in the WH now? No way in hell.
Maybe after the makeover, Biden will be able to remember the website’s name.
;’)
To start with 19K over 10 years is nothing to a congressman, and the company didn’t give it, the owner that lives in Maryland did. You also have no clue what it costs to produce software for the government, and unless you know the particulars of the contract, you’re blowing smoke out your butt. I have a degree and 30 years experience of software development for the military. Do you?
You are clueless...
You don’t buy influence for 19K over a 10 year period....
What an elitist pig.
I agree with what Newt said. They think if they appoint a czar/make a web page the task is done. Obama needs impeached for many reasons but ONE is that he is not qualified.
Lets NOT forget how the Media was bragging about the Huge Palestinian Phone Banks that were calling U.S. Voters and trying to covince them to Vote for OBOZO HUSSEIN direct from the MidEast! Was this Legal? MAY GOD HELP US and OUR AMERICA NOW!
Obama is truly anti-american, anti-Christ.
Whatever -
Enjoy your welfare - no need to thank me.
I think some posters are beating up on you un-fairly. Where I do not know the lifecycle cost of the software your company plans to deploy, I do know that most likely within that 18 mil is most likely the final product, periodic code releases, bug fixes, support and I would have to guess that infrastructure is in there somewhere as well (if not VM’s or bare metal servers, at least projected bandwidth fees)..
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