Track the Stimulus with Recovery.gov

Tax dollars are at work to ensure that you can make sure your tax dollars are at work. At least that’s the point of the White House’s Recovery.gov, a push by the Obama administration to bring some transparency to the recently-signed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Web site is in the early stages now, but you can already see a breakdown of how much money is going to what purpose and state-by-state estimates of how many jobs will be created or saved because of the plan. There’s even a feedback form for personal stories about the stimulus’ success or failure. But as Ars Technica points out, the best feature, as promised in the site’s FAQ, is the future ability to import data into XML files. This will allow other Web sites to create their own statistics, thus avoiding the political spin that’s bound to seep in to the official site. I also like the message you get when clicking on the externally-linked full bill text: “We hope your visit was informative and enjoyable.” Thanks, Mr. President! [Recovery.gov]