6 ms·

Recovery.Gov -- tracking “how and where we spend taxpayer dollars”.

30 points by babyshake 18y ago

babyshake 18y ago
From the HTML source: <h3><a href="http://WhiteHouse.gov http://WhiteHouse.gov">http://WhiteHouse.gov</a>...; <p> <h3><a href="http://USA.gov http://USA.gov">http://USA.gov</a></h5> Whoops.
- s3graham 18y ago
  Yeah, I'd have to say this one's a little less exciting web-design-wise than whitehouse.gov. Body text as img, and two people that were maybe a little overly proud of their accomplishment in the source. (not that my html & css skillz are so hot either, but...)
pmjordan 18y ago
Man, I wish I knew what our government was really spending those insanely high tax rates on. Plus, the economic downturn is sending governments across Europe on spending sprees that I fear I'll be paying for for the rest of my life. (oh and that state pension I have to pay into? Yeah, doubt I'll ever be seeing any of that)
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 18y ago
  Mostly, it's interest on debt plus SS / Medicare / Medicare which moves money around but are not direct spending. ~68% of what's left is Military spending. http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/ http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/ is a good place to start for the US Federal budget, but that's just the major branches I don't know of a good breakdown for say the number of LCD's the government buys. The picture on the bottom right is a good summary.
kin 18y ago
I hope they get detailed on spending. I always hated it when "modernization" of schools and hospitals means using a $2000 LCD to display the lunch menu.
- kajecounterhack 18y ago
  Or buying entire sets of computers...usually from Dell. I mean, Dell's fine, but seriously, it's not like they're going to dealcatcher to find the PCs for cheap. They get them cheaper than "official" retail price, at a bulk order price. And then with a new set of computers, elementary schools don't know what to do next. Word process and web browse... Oh well.
  - andreyf 18y ago
    Alan Kay said it well: Think about it: How many books do schools have—and how well are children doing at reading? How many pencils do schools have—and how well are kids doing at math? It's like missing the difference between music and instruments. You can put a piano in every classroom, but that won't give you a developed music culture, because the music culture is embodied in people. On the other hand, if you have a musician who is a teacher, then you don't need musical instruments, because the kids can sing and dance. But if you don't have a teacher who is a carrier of music, then all efforts to do music in the classroom will fail—because existing teachers who are not musicians will decide to teach the C Major scale and see what the bell curve is on that. The important thing here is that the music is not in the piano. And knowledge and edification is not in the computer. The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas. Source: http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5&print=2 http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5&pr... (submitted here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=448722 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=448722)
  - jamesbritt 18y ago
    "I mean, Dell's fine, but seriously, it's not like they're going to dealcatcher to find the PCs for cheap. They get them cheaper than "official" retail price, at a bulk order price." I used to know a guy who did IT work, and he explained why his place always bought Dells. If he ordered 100 Dell Foo2000 boxen, he knew they would all have the same video card, same motherboard, same hardware top to bottom. This meant one could roll out new software or upgrades and not be stymied when this machine behaved differently from that because of weird subtle driver issues on different hardware. I don't know if this is still true (or really if it was ever true) but it seemed a good way to reduce overall maintenance issues.
helveticaman 18y ago
I get the feeling that this will get killed... Why don't they get Community Wizard back?
zitterbewegung 18y ago
Looks interesting that we might have an opportunity of transparency in government.
greyhat 18y ago
When did the .GOV namespace become a wide open frontier for politicking? recovery.gov as a name flies directly in the face of the rules and suggestions for .gov, being a general and vague word. Although I will admit, its not nearly as bad as change.gov, featuring the phony Office of the President Elect nonsense. It is also a political opinion statement, with the implicit assumptions that recovery is needed from something, and that the government should do it. Why can't the BLS or Treasury or anything else host a website to explain this stuff? Or why not go one step further and create a US Economics website to teach people economics and track and explain current US statistics? And don't even get me started on the new whitehouse.gov.

30 points by babyshake 18y ago

From the HTML source: <h3><a href="http://WhiteHouse.gov http://WhiteHouse.gov">http://WhiteHouse.gov</a>...; <p> <h3><a href="http://USA.gov http://USA.gov">http://USA.gov</a></h5> Whoops.

s3graham 18y ago
Yeah, I'd have to say this one's a little less exciting web-design-wise than whitehouse.gov. Body text as img, and two people that were maybe a little overly proud of their accomplishment in the source. (not that my html & css skillz are so hot either, but...)

pmjordan 18y ago

Man, I wish I knew what our government was really spending those insanely high tax rates on. Plus, the economic downturn is sending governments across Europe on spending sprees that I fear I'll be paying for for the rest of my life. (oh and that state pension I have to pay into? Yeah, doubt I'll ever be seeing any of that)

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
Retric 18y ago
Mostly, it's interest on debt plus SS / Medicare / Medicare which moves money around but are not direct spending. ~68% of what's left is Military spending. http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/ http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/ is a good place to start for the US Federal budget, but that's just the major branches I don't know of a good breakdown for say the number of LCD's the government buys. The picture on the bottom right is a good summary.

kin 18y ago

I hope they get detailed on spending. I always hated it when "modernization" of schools and hospitals means using a $2000 LCD to display the lunch menu.

kajecounterhack 18y ago
Or buying entire sets of computers...usually from Dell. I mean, Dell's fine, but seriously, it's not like they're going to dealcatcher to find the PCs for cheap. They get them cheaper than "official" retail price, at a bulk order price. And then with a new set of computers, elementary schools don't know what to do next. Word process and web browse... Oh well.
- andreyf 18y ago
  Alan Kay said it well: Think about it: How many books do schools have—and how well are children doing at reading? How many pencils do schools have—and how well are kids doing at math? It's like missing the difference between music and instruments. You can put a piano in every classroom, but that won't give you a developed music culture, because the music culture is embodied in people. On the other hand, if you have a musician who is a teacher, then you don't need musical instruments, because the kids can sing and dance. But if you don't have a teacher who is a carrier of music, then all efforts to do music in the classroom will fail—because existing teachers who are not musicians will decide to teach the C Major scale and see what the bell curve is on that. The important thing here is that the music is not in the piano. And knowledge and edification is not in the computer. The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas. Source: http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5&print=2 http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5&pr... (submitted here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=448722 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=448722)
- jamesbritt 18y ago
  "I mean, Dell's fine, but seriously, it's not like they're going to dealcatcher to find the PCs for cheap. They get them cheaper than "official" retail price, at a bulk order price." I used to know a guy who did IT work, and he explained why his place always bought Dells. If he ordered 100 Dell Foo2000 boxen, he knew they would all have the same video card, same motherboard, same hardware top to bottom. This meant one could roll out new software or upgrades and not be stymied when this machine behaved differently from that because of weird subtle driver issues on different hardware. I don't know if this is still true (or really if it was ever true) but it seemed a good way to reduce overall maintenance issues.

helveticaman 18y ago

I get the feeling that this will get killed... Why don't they get Community Wizard back?

zitterbewegung 18y ago

Looks interesting that we might have an opportunity of transparency in government.

greyhat 18y ago

When did the .GOV namespace become a wide open frontier for politicking? recovery.gov as a name flies directly in the face of the rules and suggestions for .gov, being a general and vague word. Although I will admit, its not nearly as bad as change.gov, featuring the phony Office of the President Elect nonsense. It is also a political opinion statement, with the implicit assumptions that recovery is needed from something, and that the government should do it. Why can't the BLS or Treasury or anything else host a website to explain this stuff? Or why not go one step further and create a US Economics website to teach people economics and track and explain current US statistics? And don't even get me started on the new whitehouse.gov.