White House Rolls Out Web Site, Initiatives to Boost Transparency

On his first full day in office, President Obama issued his first executive order directing federal officials to come up with ideas for making government information more visible and accessible to the public within 120 days.  Today -- the 120th day since the edict -- the White House is rolling out a host of online initiatives intended to foster more dialogue and collaboration between citizens and bureaucrats.  

Boehner Participates in the White House's Open Government Forum

Among the very first Americans to take advantage of the White House's new call for participation under the Open Government Initiative goes by the handle republicanleaderjohnboehner. And yes, that's the House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Boehner's suggestion of a 72-hour review period on major spending bills coming before Congress is, with 304 votes, the highest-rated idea on the IdeaScale site being hosted by the National Academy of Public Administration.

The 10 Hottest Viral Video Ad Campaigns Right Now

We’re living in the YouTube generation, where not only are you consuming video at massive rates, but also uploading boat loads of it. However, only a select few of these videos ever go viral and achieve Internet meme status.

The top YouTube videos of all time are basically just a mix of celebrity music videos, movie trailers, and cultural phenomena (like Susan Boyle). But, we’re also noticing that more and more brands are able to use the Web as a platform, in lieu of (or in conjunction with) more traditional media outlets, to disperse their ad campaigns and reach large audiences.

Today, President-Elect Barack Obama met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill about a proposed stimulus bill to help "stabilize" America's sagging economy.

While the details of the plan are still being sketched out, Republican leaders from the House and Senate were a part of that face-to-face session and appear to have made some progress toward pushing Obama's team toward transparency with the TBD stimulus plan.

In particular, as reported by The New York Times and padded with details from a Congressional source from that meeting, House Republican Eric Cantor, (who will be sworn in tomorrow to the #2 leadership post of House Republican Whip), asserted that all spending should be posted online, in real-time, in a user-friendly format with the ability to sort by congressional districts.

As reported by the NYT:

Mr. Obama listened as Republicans raised concerns about waste and transparency in the economic stimulus plan. He agreed with a suggestion raised by Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, about putting the entire contents of the legislation online in a user-friendly way to see how the money is being spent.

Obama's agreement to the idea of posting spending online is no surprise given his track-record of the use of technology to help curb wasteful spending. He was the cosponsor of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 with conservative U.S. Senator Tom Coburn which led to the creation of USAspending.gov to do just that.

The details of the stimulus plan are still being fleshed out but I feel a bit better about it knowing that leaders like Eric Cantor are putting forth good ideas that are being agreed to - at least in concept - by Obama. We should keep a close eye to ensure that Obama and his liberal allies in the House and Senate keep these commonsense principles in place as they finalize the legislation.

UPDATE Jan. 6, 10:52 AM: Regarding the stimulus plan, The Heritage Foundation has launched a rapid response section on its website to track the bill and offer conservative alternatives.

Ron Paul's supporters have provided a measure of radical transparency into his fundraising that would make most political operatives suffer heart failure. Going well beyond the now-passe end-of-quarter fundraising "bat," the Paul campaign has set a public goal of $12 million raised for the quarter, posting their current total live on the homepage and including the names and hometowns of donors. If a donation comes in while you're on the site, you'll see it update live.

As if this weren't bold enough, RonPaulGraphs.com has taken it a step further. Using the live data feed that powers the graphic, the site publishes an impressive array of analytics including a minute-by-minute view of donations and projected totals for the month and quarter.

But that's not all.