Sens. Obama, Coburn introduce spending transparency bill

Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) introduced a bill Tuesday aimed at expanding the reach of recently enacted measures designed to make federal spending more transparent.

The Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008 (S.3077) would enhance the Web site USASpending.gov, which was launched in December 2007 following a similarly themed law passed a year earlier.  The bill introduced on Tuesday includes original co-sponsorship by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.).

If the new bill passes, the Web site will provide online access in both PDF and searchable text formats to all federal contracts, audits and actions taken against federal award recipients, among many other details connected to government spending.

As one might expect, we whole-heartedly support this measure. If passed, we will be watching to see if federal agencies are sufficiently diligent in complying with the bill’s ambitious — if also direly needed — mandates.