1. In Indiana, stimulus grows rainy day fund

    By Bill Allison Mar 2, 2010 5:45 p.m.

    The North West Indiana County Times recently pointed out something fascinating about how Indiana was using funds granted to it under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:

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  2. Recovery.gov: Completely Tracking One-Fifth of the Recovery Act

    By Lisa Chiu Feb 15, 2010 11:27 a.m. 1 comment

    In his State of the Union Address late last month, President Barack Obama declared - to great applause - that there were two million Americans working now who would otherwise be unemployed if not for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus.

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  3. My dog ate my stimulus: Best of Recovery recipients' excuses

    By Luke Rosiak Feb 2, 2010 12:48 p.m.

    The Obama administration has made an unprecedented effort to use technology to publicly chronicle the flow of massive amounts of stimulus money, but government is slow to adapt, and not all of those who do business with it are so tech-savvy. 

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  4. Recovery.gov data available on FedSpending.org

    By Bill Allison Dec 3, 2009 4:19 p.m.

    Our friends at OMB Watch have added Recovery data to FedSpending.org. The advanced search is available here. Heres a record for a recipient Real Time profiled back when Recovery data was only available on USASpending.gov, and heres one for the Carson City Airport Authority, which we wrote about here.

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  5. Recovery.gov recipient data just in

    By Bill Allison Oct 15, 2009 4:50 p.m.

    Recovery.gov posted information today showing that 30,383 jobs have been created or saved by the federal contracts that have been awarded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. So far, $16 billion has been disbursed by 9,100 contracts. The federal government is spending more than $525,000 spent on every job they saved or created.

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  6. USDA misses the point

    By Bill Allison Jul 20, 2009 4:11 p.m. 2 comments

    Matt Drudge has linked a dozen or so examples of what look to be wasteful spending in the stimulus--$2,531,600 for 'HAM, WATER ADDED, COOKED, FROZEN, SLICED, 2-LB', $1,191,200 for '2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED' (I linked that one immediately below), $351,807 for 'REPLACE AND UPGRADE THE DUMBWAITER, $1,562,568 for 'MOZZARELLA CHEESE'... and so on. In response, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture posted the following clarifying information:

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  7. Open notebook: Following stimulus contracts

    By Luke Rosiak Jun 29, 2009 8:55 p.m. 1 comment

    Recovery.gov might not be useful yet for "following every penny" of stimulus spending, but with a telephone, Google, USASpending.gov and some luck it might not be that hard. Pretty much at random, I picked out a bunch of congressional press releases touting stimulus dollars going to local communities, and started making calls. Here's some notes on where one inquiry led me.

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  8. Some stimulus recipients to report in Excel?

    By Bill Allison Jun 23, 2009 8:02 p.m.

    Just reading the new guidance from Office of Management and Budget for recipients funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to report information to the government: "This Recipient Reporting spreadsheet template is to be used for non-machine recipient reporting. It enables manual data entry and collection of recipient reporting information in a familiar excel format."

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  9. Whither stimulus contracts?

    By Bill Allison May 18, 2009 9:52 p.m. 8 comments

    The Washington Post's Kimberly Kindy reports that the Dept. of Energy is awarding stimulus funds to companies specializing in nuclear clean-ups that have a mixed track record:

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  10. Where to find stimulus contracts

    By Bill Allison May 14, 2009 6:02 p.m. 7 comments

    A company that offers outsourcing services to federal and state governments got a a contract award for $2.8 million in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- the stimulus -- to set up call centers for the FCC's digital transition effort; they advertised for jobs paying $16.38 an hour in Buffalo, N.Y. The Dept. of Health and Human Services spent $326,000 in stimulus funds to purchase and install 98 workstations (and an option to store them until needed at a cost of $35 per pallet); a Midland, MI-based company, Space, Inc., got the sale. And the General Services Administration used stimulus funds to hire a pair of Northern Virginia contractors to help oversee the hiring of contractors bidding for both stimulus and non-stimulus work.

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  11. Disabled adult children

    By Bill Allison Mar 26, 2009 1:06 p.m.

    This morning, while reading a release linked from Recovery.gov, I ran across one of those government terms that make no sense. As part of the stimulus efforts, the Railroad Retirement Board, an independent agency that manages federal benefits for railroad retirees and their dependents (more details on why this board exists here) will send additional checks of $250 to most of its beneficiaries, "including disabled adult children."

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