Sunlight Foundation
Sunlight Foundation: Making government transparent and accountable.
Information
Location:
Washington, DC, 20036
Phone:
202-742-1520
Fans

6 of 2,820 fansSee All

Sarah
Sarah
Raymond
Raymond
Jenny
Jenny
Tigran
Tigran
Natalia
Natalia
Andrew
Andrew
Explore

"Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants..."
-Justice Louis D. Brandeis

Photobucket

Check us out!


Transparency has a Posse...


Spare a Dime?

Read The Bill
Video

2 videosSee All

MSNBC Dylan Rattigan- Recovery.gov
7:01 Added about 4 months ago
Read The Bill on CNN
2:21 Added about 8 months ago
No one has added fan videos.
Create a Page for My BusinessReport Page
 
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation "Overall, federal agencies administering stimulus funds have awarded $119 million to 106 recipients that independent auditors cited in 2009 as having “significant deficiencies” in their ability to administer federal programs..."

Stimulus grantees cited for poor oversight of federal funds — Sunlight Foundation's Real Time Invest
Source: realtime.sunlightprojects.org
Tracking Private Influences on Public Policy
7 hours ago
View all 5 comments
Andy Joe
Andy Joe
I'm glad to know stimulus spending is getting this kind of scrutiny. I hope this report leads to improvements within those local entities.

Is the $119M a big percentage of the stimulus dollars spent? All malfeasance deserves attention, but context is key. How else can the public react proportionately. If 50%+ of funds have been directed to shotty ... Read Moreoutfits, that's a much diffent story than if the figure is less than 1%. Knowing where the 106 recipients fall on the spectrum between failing to file required documents (not so bad, easily correctable) and committing fraud (send 'em to jail) seems like useful context, too.
about an hour ago
Sunlight Foundation
Sunlight Foundation
Andy: the $119 is a small sliver of the stimulus funds and the 106 is probably a small number of the total amount of recipiends (it is unknown what the total is).

The point is that there are procedures in place to assure that there isn't waste, fraud and abuse, and one of them is paying attention to single audit reports. The Recovery Board is aware of (and worried about) money going to organizations with significant deficiencies uncovered by those reports, as we duly noted.

The purpose of putting this data out there is so individuals can use it to monitor the government's performance. That's what we did with this report; we're hoping others will follow our lead and drill down deeper, requesting copies of audits to find out what the problems with these recipients are.... Read More
34 minutes ago
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation The Huffington Post put out a piece by Ellen Miller, Sunlight's executive director and co-founder, about why government should be just as accessible in real-time as sports scores are:

Ellen Miller: Envisioning a Real-Time Government
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
With so much information readily available at the tips of our fingers, the slow pace of information dispersal from the government only engenders distrust. The contrast between government and our real-time real life is simply too stark not to be frustrated by.
Yesterday at 12:16pm
Carol Henrichs
Carol Henrichs
Oh boy, what a concept. And they need to also realize that doing the public's business should be PUBLIC!
7 hours ago
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation NPR's health blog has a post about closed door meetings that quotes Bill Allison, editorial director of the Sunlight Foundation:

Legislating In Secret Irks GOP, But Insiders Say It's SOP - Shots - Health News Blog : NPR
Source: www.npr.org
The latest news on health and medicine from NPR
Yesterday at 10:33am
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation There is an article in the Washington Times
this morning about lobbyists and health care reform. It quotes the Sunlight Foundation's
Nancy Watzman about scheduled fundraisers:

Lobbyists spending big to shape health care debate - Washington Times
Source: www.washingtontimes.com
Sen. Max Baucus will be busy the next few weeks trying to steer the health care reform bill, but he won't be so busy that he can't find time to hit Washington's fundraising circuit.
Yesterday at 8:40am
View all 5 comments
Mike Yetter
Mike Yetter
Thank you. I never thought I'd quote the Washington Times but I will now. Sad that this is accepted and allowed behavior by our legislators. Jefferson got time, but his only crime was putting cash in his freezer instead of taking with a cocktail in one hand and a shrimp cocktail in the other.
12 hours ago
Sam McCool
Sam McCool
Americans should be proud: We have the best government that money can buy. Give Sen. Baucus credit: Like Rep. Frank and Sen. Dodd, he knows how to milk major legislation for "campaign contributions."
9 hours ago
Deena Pastore

Deena Pastore Great site.

Sun at 8:59am · Report
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation The Dallas Morning News quotes Clay Johnson, director of
Sunlight Labs on Recovery.gov reporting issues: "Complaining
about bad data on recovery.gov
is like complaining to Toyota
for paying too much for gasoline."

Errors on government Web site make it difficult to track stimulus money | News for Dallas, Texas | D
Source: www.dallasnews.com
Washington News - The Dallas Morning News is your trusted source for news from Washington D.C. The Dallas Morning News is your trusted source for political news from Washington D.C. and the 2008 elections
November 20 at 10:47am
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review quotes Sunlight's Bill Allison
about phantom funding in Pennsylvania
seen on Recovery.gov:

Federal stimulus funds reported in nonexistent Pennsylvania districts - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Source: www.pittsburghlive.com
Five Pennsylvania congressional districts that don't exist received a combined $12.6 million in federal stimulus money that created or saved 32.2 jobs, according to the Web site the Obama administration created.
November 20 at 7:51am
Beca Fulcher
Beca Fulcher
I believe Vice President Biden spoke of that issue more recently while on the Jon Stewart Show. He said that the forms were cumbersome because they asked the district number of workers, and many don't actually know what their district numbers are, so they just made up numbers in order to get the forms completed and sent in. He stated that the workers were real people, that the problem was with them listing non-existent district numbers.
November 20 at 3:27pm
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation If you are in Saint Paul, MN today go hang out with Sunlight, Common Cause, and the Uptake for an Even Happier Hour!

Sunlight's Even Happier Hour
Sunlight Foundation and Common Cause MN will be drinking, sharing ideas about how to open up government and...drinking.
Location:The Bulldog LowerTown
Time:8:00PM Friday, November 20th
November 20 at 6:55am
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation Read the Senate health care bill on OpenCongress:

Read the Senate Health Care Bill - Blog - OpenCongress
Source: www.opencongress.org
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released his landmark health care bill last night. An initial vote on the bill may come as soon as Saturday. Read it online at OpenCongress: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act>>
November 19 at 10:13am
Ken Traugott
Ken Traugott
Thank you for doing this!
November 19 at 10:24am
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation The Existing Visual blog has a
piece about the Visualizar '09 conference and the presentation by Kerry Mitchell, Sunlight's Creative Director:

Existing Visual » Visualizar’09: Second Day of Seminars
Source: www.existingvisual.com
Friday, November 14, was the 2nd day of seminar at Visualizar'09. See our previous post about its Kick-Off. Xavier Alonso presented data404, a collection of sources of public information. In the following ...
November 18 at 10:07am
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation
Sunlight Foundation and Common Cause MN will be hosting an 'Even Happier Hour' on Friday 11/20/09 for attendees of Netroots Nation MN or anyone else who cares about government transparency at any level.

First four attendees get a Sunlight Foundation tshirt and limited edition stickers!

UPDATE: Staff from The UpTake will ...also be on hand to talk about ways to open up video at the state legislature!

Photo courtesy:

djrsterenborg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djrsterenborg/2800169378/
via CC BY-SA 2.0

Read More

Sunlight's Even Happier Hour
Sunlight Foundation and Common Cause MN will be drinking, sharing ideas about how to open up government and...drinking.
Time:8:00PM Friday, November 20th
Location:The Bulldog LowerTown
November 18 at 8:35am
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation The Cato@Liberty blog has a post on inaccuracies on Recovery.gov and why releasing buggy data may be better than
sitting on it until it's perfect. It points to the Sunlight Foundation as an ideal NGO to mash up and present the
data:

In Defense of Error-Laden Reporting | Cato @ Liberty
Source: www.cato-at-liberty.org
Tempted though I am to join the pile-on over the many inaccuracies in the data on the Recovery.gov stimulus reporting site—including claims of jobs created in non-existent congressional districts—I think ...
November 18 at 7:49am
Lex Alexander
Lex Alexander
Quasi-relatedly, I have long objected to loopholes in open-records law allowing "drafts" and "working papers" to be withheld. Not only is it important to know where and how the discussion on important projects is going, early sunlight is much more likely to kill a bad idea in its crib than a good one.
November 18 at 8:14am
Tom Jones
Tom Jones
There are some serious issues with this data though. The Congressional District problem stemmed from folks not knowing what Congressional District they were in (ignoring of course that if you have the address there's really no reason to ask for CD - you can resolve that mechanically). This leads to the fundamental question about the integrity of... Read More the data and the conclusions it leads to. If a reporting individual can't accurately tell us what Congressional District they are in how are we supposed to believe them when they tell us they've saved or created 50 jobs - a much more complicated question.

If this was just an academic exercise I wouldn't care, but the admin is using these numbers to justify massive government spending.

The upside of them releasing massively flawed data is that it shows that the basis of their justification is flawed and we should seriously question the conclusions (spend more $$$) that they want us to draw.
November 18 at 9:00am
Paul
Paul
It is good to see a work in progress. Some of the errors were clerical and minor. Like reading the numbers off the voting machines in NY after an election. During recounts of muliple machines different results are always arrived at. Reading Newspapers has become a challenge since they started using spell check.
We are imperfect and expect honesty, not perfection.
November 19 at 6:14am
Neal Gorenflo

Neal Gorenflo Found a great flyer by Sunlight Foundations listing the top 15 gov't watchdog sites but couldn't find the list online, so I blogged it myself here: http://bit.ly/1qulbo

November 17 at 12:51pm · Report
Sunlight Foundation
Sunlight Foundation
Thanks! thats great!
November 17 at 2:11pm
Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation The Huffington Post points to a
number of political fundraisers from Sunlight's
Party Time site including the recent Redskins game, the upcoming rival match up with the Cowboys and some gatherings
on Capitol Hill townhouses:

Cowboys And Redskins: This Week In Political Fundraisers
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
Tickets to this Sunday's grudge match between the NFL's Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys can be had on Craigslist for less than $200. But for $2,000, you can enjoy the game while whispering in the ear of Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex) in a Cowboy Stadium suite.
November 17 at 11:55am
RECENT ACTIVITY
Sunlight Foundation changed their Public Transit.