ATR on The Need for “Stimulus” Accountability and Transparency

The House Science and Technology Committee held a hearing on Government and Public Resources for Recovery Act Oversight today.  ATR submitted a letter to the committee on the issue.  From the letter:

While we remain unconvinced of the merits of the Recovery Act, and remain concerned about the burden it imposes on taxpayers, the focus now must be damage control. This Committee has an important responsibility to ensure that funding from the Recovery Act is spent with an eye on minimizing the potential for fraud, waste, and abuse, the danger for which lurks whenever large sums of money are spent expeditiously.    The key to minimizing fraud, waste, and abuse are transparency and accountability.

 

While the President assumed office promising that “those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day," already the way in which the Recovery Act was passed – without a single hearing by any committee, and without giving members of Congress an opportunity to read the hundreds of pages of bill text and report language – was a blatant violation of both the spirit and the letter of that promise.

 

And despite renewed lofty promises of an “unprecedented level of transparency” with regard to the implementation of the Recovery Act, so far, taxpayers are still largely in the dark as to how “stimulus” dollars are being spent. (…)