Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

Making the bailout more transparent

It's old news -- several trillion dollars ago -- but back in 2008 the Federal Reserve, Treasury and the FDIC started working in tandem on a series of measures to stabilize the financial system. The Federal Reserve's aid is doled our or loaned out in secrecy, despite the dogged attempts of Bloomberg News to pry loose the data; the FDIC has released some, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by our colleagues at SubsidyScope.com.

Cities seeking a Piece of the Action?

From the A Piece of the Action? database, here's a list of cities that have hired lobbyists who have reported that the bailout or the stimulus is a specific lobbying issue, complete with links (if any) to project requests on the excellent StimulusWatch.org page for those cities:

Hidden earmarks?

This passage is from page 85 of the Labor, HHS, Education portion of the committee report for the big appropriations bill:

Who's seeking A Piece of the Action?

The bailout (the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, etc.) and the stimulus (the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act) are massive pieces of legislation with lots of moving parts. Thus, the more eyeballs on them and what's around them, the better.

NY Times: Clinton Foundation Donor got help from Hillary

Digging down deep into the list of Clinton Foundation donors, the New York Times finds that a donor had gotten considerable help from Sen. Hillary Clinton:

Updates to Clinton donors

Just a running commentary on what I'm finding.

Wall Street Journal profiles donors...

...here

Clinton Foundation releases donor list;

...and, thanks to my Sunlight colleague Larry Makinson and DabbleDB.com, we've got it available in a database format. The source material is here, but I couldn't get into the first page (glad that Larry could).

Notes and Methodology on the Tariff Suspensions

Time can't find an outrageous Defense earmark

Time Magazine offers its list of the top ten wasteful earmarks proposed in 2008 (note that many of these were proposed but not funded -- download a complete list of earmarks that were funded by going here.

New database brings transparency to tariff bills

Though they likely won't become law in 2008, more than 800 bills that were introduced by 116 members of the House, that would cut taxes on imports by an estimated $1.1 billion, and that were specifically requested by 120 companies and organizations that would benefit from them, are still pending in the 110th Congress. The bills reduce or eliminate tariffs on everything from unicycles to storage batteries for hybrid cars, from hair fibers of the rare vicua to chemicals for making rodent poison. Of the named beneficiaries, 65 hired in-house or outside lobbyists that listed specific bills or tariff duty suspensions as issues they sought to influence, an analysis of records from the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC), and the Senate Office of Public Records shows.

Blagojevich indictment visualized

I found it at the Chicago Tribune. Here's the text of it in Many Eyes, as a word tree. Interesting words to search in addition to Intercepted: Senate seat, Tribune Editorial Board, Campaign and Rezko.

Financial Bailout: Do Interests of Automakers and Members Diverge?

Reading the restructuring plan that General Motors put together makes me wonder whether, in a broad sense, there isn't an insuperable conflict of interest between members of Congress and the automakers. Consider just one aspect of the plan:

Does Congress think Detroit is a good investment?

It appears that <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081117/D94GUIK80.html">the auto bailout</a> is stalled for now, as congressional leadership and the Bush administration have come to loggerheads over providing $25 to $50 billion in loans to General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler.