Uncle Sam's IT dashboard: Your tax dollars at work

Info World - Adventures in IT ^ | 7/1/09 | Robert X. Cringely

[TeknoBeck]

U.S. citizens have a brand-new tool to gauge how well their government is performing -- at least, when it comes to IT. Cringely says it's about time.

Want to know exactly where all those ducats you reluctantly turned over to our Uncle in Washington are going? Things just got a little clearer today, at least in terms of our tech taxes.

Today at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City, federal tech czar Vivek Kundra unveiled the new IT Dashboard at USAspending.gov, which shows you exactly where all those sawbucks are flowing, in dollar amounts that could make you dizzy.

Even if you don't care a whit about tech or government, it's a damned impressive tool. You see not only how much of our annual $74 billion IT budget is flowing to each agency, but which projects it's flowing to, which contractors are raking in the most of it, which projects are on track, and which ones are swirling down the toilet. (You can even watch a video demo of it.)

In true Web 2.0 fashion, the site lets you embed the charts in your own blog or post them to Twitter, Facebook, or Delicious. Next week it plans to launch a blog where ordinary citizens can comment. Approximately two seconds after that, the first flame war between the Obamanistas and the Obama-haters will erupt.

[ShadowAce]

[DManA]

it's a damned impressive tool.

And Cringely is a damned easily impressed fool.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Useless tech. All you need to know is the overreach of the government, that it has totally slipped its leash, that we are looking at trillion dollar deficits from here to eternity and the demise of the US. Who gives a damn about the details when the big picture is so dire. It’s more pocket lint fluff to amuse the little minds.

[Incorrigible]

Data.gov is the other primary data site for the administration.  Though it mostly skews toward justifying more government spending.

If you want to get to the real source data (in difficult formats however), try the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

[stainlessbanner]

Pretty graphics, useless data.
The dashboard concept has been around for two decades. Cringley is impressed? Really?

For TARP money tracking use http://www.stimuluswatch.org/ instead of http://recovery.gov.

[martin_fierro]

One of my favorite PBS moments was watching Cringeley gradually lose his mind while trying to build his own kit plane on his own.

[KC_Conspirator]

I find this tool neat too. Especially since they started making some basic spending information available in a dashboard web tool.

[ikka]

I applaud this, because now it will be much easier to convince the sheep that we have runaway spending.

[bgill]

If I Had A Million Ducats - Brobdingnagians

If I had a million ducats (If I had a million ducats)
I’d buy you a keep (I would buy you a keep)
If I had a million ducats (If I had a million ducats)
I’d buy you furniture for your keep (Like a Louis the XIV or an armoire)
If I had a million ducats (If I had a million ducats)
I’d buy you a big coach (with all the pretty with fringe on the top)
If I had a million ducats I’d buy your love.

If I had a million ducats (We wouldn’t have to hunt for our game)
If I had a million ducats (We’d hunt for sport cuz it’s not the same)
If I had a million ducats (We’d have peasants grow food all around the keep)
And we’d have a big garden. (A maze garden)
With high protein-enriched food (like lentils)
And bambi and thumper playing in it.

If I had a million ducats (If I had a million ducats)
I’d buy you a fur cloak (But not a woolen cloak. That’s cruel)
If I had a million ducats (If I had a million ducats)
I’d buy you an exotic pet (Like a dragon or a leviathan)
If I had a million ducats (if I had a million ducats)
I’d buy a saint’s remains (And all those crazy lucky saint’s bones)
If I had a million ducats I’d buy your love.

If I had a million ducats (We wouldn’t have to walk to the faire)
If I had a million ducats (We’d hire a knight carry us there)
If I had a million ducats (We wouldn’t have to get our feet all dirty)
We wouldn’t have to walk in the filth.
(We’d have people throw cloaks on the ground like for Sir Walter Raleigh)
Or even better, peasants (on all fours)

If I had a million ducats (If I had a million ducats)
I’d buy you a bed (But not bed of nails. That’s cruel)
If I had a million ducats (If I had a million ducats)
I’d buy you some art (a Michaelangelo or Donatello)
If I had a million ducats (If I had a million ducats)
I’d buy you a monkey (haven’t you always wanted a monkey?)

If I had a million ducats, If I had a million ducats
If I had a million ducats, If I had a million ducats
We’d be kings.