Sunlight Foundation

  1. Disappearmarks: Buffalo’s Switcheroo saves earmark

    By Lisa Chiu Jun 1, 2010 2:27 p.m.

    Congressman Brian Higgins (right) breaks ground with Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown on historic streets in the Buffalo Inner Harbor in September 2009. (Photo: http://www.buffalowaterfront.com)

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  2. Study: Earmarks, federal spending follow political power, inhibit economic growth

    By Bill Allison Jun 1, 2010 9:51 a.m.

    Rep. James Moran takes the gavel

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  3. DCCC invokes Murtha to aid Critz

    By Bill Allison May 5, 2010 2:57 p.m.

    A friend and colleague passes along the following email the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is sending out, signed by the widow of the late Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., Joyce Murtha: DCCC email

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  4. Case study in trying to analyze earmark data

    By Lisa Chiu May 4, 2010 12:25 p.m.

    Each year, Congress allocates billions in earmarks that come in the form of annual appropriation committee requests or are attached to various bills that become law. The Sunlight Foundation thought it would be interesting to examine which earmarks, after all the Congressional debate and bluster has dispensed, actually get spent.

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  5. From earmark to disappearmark: Bush administration policy shift cut funding for congressional projects

    By Lisa Chiu May 4, 2010 12:24 p.m.

    Rep. David Price, D-N.C.

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  6. Earmark Season: Republicans up the ante on Democratic for-profit ban

    By Bill Allison Mar 11, 2010 5:03 p.m.

    Following the announcement by Rep. David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Norm Dicks, incoming chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, that members can no longer earmark funs to for profit companies, the House Republicans have adopted a one-year moratorium on earmark requests.

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  7. Potential Murtha successor Norm Dicks knows the favor factory

    By Luke Rosiak Feb 10, 2010 3:56 p.m.

    The abrupt passing of Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.) left many wondering who would replace the King of Pork as chair of the Defense Appropriations subcommitteebut anyone hoping his replacement might bring relief from a reputation for trading favors, rewarding campaign contributors and steering lucrative contracts to home districts would likely be disappointed by the pool of potential successors.  

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  8. Obama asks Congress for real earmark disclosure

    By Bill Allison Jan 28, 2010 4:52 p.m.

    Right now, three years after Congress began trying to make earmarks transparent, I still have to look in three different places if I want to know how much money Rep. James Moran, D-Va., secured for particular beneficiaries in the Defense appropriations act. I have to read a sideways-posted PDF looking for Moran's requests (like the $1 million for the Ground Combat System Knowledge Center and Technical Inspection Data Capture), and match that project name to one of two enormous PDF files (the bigger is 75 MB) containing earmark disclosure letters from members of Congress (right-side up, but not searchable). The project names in the sideways disclosure don't always match the project names in the unsearchable disclosure, but in this case they did: Portal Dynamics, an Alexandria, Va.-based contractor, was the beneficiary. To find out why Moran thinks this is a good use of taxpayer funds, I have to search on his Web site and hope that his appropriations requests are still online (they are, but lots of members have removed them), to read that "

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  9. Stimulus grantees cited for poor oversight of federal funds

    By Anupama Narayanswamy Nov 24, 2009 4:32 p.m.

    The Carson City Airport Authority, which has benefited in the last four years from more than $13 million in federal funds, is now slated to receive another $9.6 million in stimulus money, even though an independent auditor cited problems earlier this year with how it manages its federal grants.

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  10. How data-dependent is health care reform?

    By Bill Allison Oct 26, 2009 2:33 p.m.

    If the visualization of America's Healthy Future Act (also known as the Baucus Bill) -- immediately below is any indication, data is pretty important to health care reform plans. The word occurs 275 times in the text -- there are new data banks, data collected, data submitted and data shared.

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  11. CAR Training - visualizations

    By Bill Allison Oct 23, 2009 7:02 p.m.

    Sign up for a many eyes account by clicking here: Many Eyes Registration.

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  12. Why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported spending so much on lobbying

    By Bill Allison Oct 21, 2009 10:57 p.m.

    The latest filing from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that the trade association, which represents 300,000 members--mostly businesses--spent a whopping $34,690,000 on lobbying in the third quarter of 2009. So what does this number actually mean? What are they spending their money on?

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  13. Murtha challenger trounces incumbent in fundraising; outraises Boehner and Pelosi too

    By Bill Allison Oct 16, 2009 5:32 p.m.

    While the ethics scandals that have multiplied around top fundraisers and earmark recipients of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., have yet to involve him directly, he now faces a challenge from a different direction: A well-financed opponent.

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  14. 5,000 earmark requests databased

    By Bill Allison Jul 27, 2009 2:39 p.m.

    Our friends at Washington Watch have had some success in their effort to turn messy, un-formatted member earmark requests into usable, analyzable data:

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