Show Me the Money
Most of us work hard for our money and we like to know exactly where it’s going. If we think we have $100 unaccounted for in our bank balances, we’re going to find out where it went. Imagine losing $787 billion; you’d certainly want to know what happened to it.
$787 billion dollars. That is a sum of money that most of us can’t begin to fathom – what it looks like, what it could buy, how fast it could be spent. Although it’s hard to picture how much $787 billion really is, we do know one thing – it’s a lot of money. More importantly, $787 billion has become a significant number to all of us since it’s the total amount allocated for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
That money is coming directly from taxpayers – our hard-earned cash – and President Barack Obama took measures to ensure those receiving the funds would be transparent to taxpayers on how the money is spent. He created Recovery.gov where citizens can track spending and mandated that agencies receiving funds are required to submit updates on stimulus activities to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The first updates were due Tuesday, March 3. Government Executive magazine contacted the OMB to obtain the results. Shockingly, they came up with very little. Government Executive reports that OMB officials would not say how many agencies met the Tuesday deadline for handing in their initial reports, and numerous agencies failed to return calls for comment.
It is an understatement to say that it is clearly not a good step in the right direction if agencies that control billions of taxpayer dollars can’t be bothered to return calls to update taxpayers on how their money is being spent. What is more worrisome is that these reports are what the OMB and Congress are using for oversight.
“The weekly report will become the basis by which OMB, the White House and Congress conduct oversight responsibilities with regard to the agencies,” said Tom Gavin, OMB spokesman.
From March 3 to May 12, agencies are required to submit weekly reports on stimulus spending; after May 12, they are required to only submit monthly reports. It is imperative that these agencies are accountable and transparent on their stimulus spending, and they can be assured of one thing: taxpayers are definitely watching to see where the $787 billion loss in their bank balance is going.
by Anna Lafferre