Government transparancy enters the 21st century

From Daily Kos:

Americans had a hard time finding out where their hard-earned tax dollars went. Until 2 days ago.

Now, thanks to USAspending.gov, a site created by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 by Tom Coburn and Barack Obama, anyone can discover the pockets of federal dollars. The site tracks contracts, grants, earmarks, and loans.

Check out the website for some interesting data. The Kos diary found

7 examples (contracts with KBR/Halliburton, Tom Delay's pork, no bid contracts with defense contractors and even the government of Canada, spending on guided missiles, maintenance of dams, and stranger things including flags, perfumes, and hand tools).

and there is much more shady funding out there — in addition to a lot, and I mean a lot, of pork. Naturally, data sensitive to national security (or "national security") is not included on the site. (I sort-of blogged about the reality of a website to track government spending a bit over a year ago.)