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Sen. Tom Coburn and the Office of Management and Budget this morning announced the launch of a new government website that will provide Americans with easier access to federal spending data.

"This is a website that will ensure our liberty, because it will give us more transparency," Coburn said at a press conference to announce the launch of the site, which he fought for in the Senate along with Barack Obama. "An informed public is a free public, and a public that can hold us all accountable."

Coburn said that bloggers were the "key group" who helped spearhead this effort, and he said he hopes now that it is operational they will use the site (http://www.usaspending.gov/) to expose Congress. "I think this is going to be a wildfire," he said.

The site itself is still a "work in progress," according to an OMB official who also spoke at the press conference. He said that they will be updating the site with more data and more features, but they wanted to launch it ahead of schedule so they could begin to get feedback.

I just did some quick experimentation, and found it easy to use. I clicked on a tab for "contracts" and did a search for Jack Murtha's baby, Concurrent Technologies, and found they received over $176 million in contracts in FY 2006, $87 million of which went directly to Murtha's district.

So, what are you wating for? Get to work!

topics:
Barack Obama