Another Broken Obama Promise: The Certain Failure of Recovery.gov

Transparency and the Obama administration?

Don't believe it.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama promised taxpayers they could track each of the billions and billions of dollars in spending Congress has approved to stimulate the nation's flailing economy and save its banks. It's a promise that's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to keep.

Obama, whose presidential campaign harnessed technology to identify supporters and track voters, already has rewritten the rules on how technology can be used to shape public opinion. But as the president and his top aides attempt to turn that savvy into governing, they are finding that existing technology and regulations are making it difficult for them to keep their word.

"We're actually going to set up something called Recovery.gov. This is going to be a special Web site we set up, that gives you a report on where the money is going in your community, how it's being spent, how many jobs it's being created so that all of you can be the eyes and ears," Obama told an audience last week in Indiana.

"And if you see that a project is not working the way it's supposed to, you'll be able to get on that Web site and say, 'You know, I thought this was supposed to be going to school construction, but I haven't noticed any changes being made.' And that will help us track how this money is being spent."

Except that it didn't work exactly as Obama suggested when the Web site went live Tuesday as Obama signed the $787 billion economic stimulus package into law.

While the site breaks down the massive bill into broad categories, and provides state-by-state estimates of jobs that will be created, it does not provide any details on spending by community.

White House aides say they will provide more information as soon as they can, but they cannot predict which specific projects—this bridge or that highway, for instance—will be included, because states make those decisions.

The problem facing the administration is that it's impossible to put on the Web site decisions that have not yet been made.

"They're thinking the right way and moving the right direction," said Gary Bass, the founder of OMB Watch, which tracks federal spending. "But we won't be happy, nonetheless."

At least for now, there's no way to track spending down to the town level, as Obama promised, especially on statewide projects such as installing high-speed Internet lines to rural areas that don't have street addresses, let alone local governments.

...Obama aides say they will post such information as they can, but they acknowledge it's not going to be announcing things at a micro level. Money for students in a metropolitan area, maybe; how one school district spent that money, no way.

Aides say the administration deserves credit for trying to take government transparency to new levels.

So when Obama promised us that we will be able to track the spending of billions and billions and billions and billions of our tax dollars, it was an empty promise.

The administration does not deserve credit for trying to take government transparency to new levels. It doesn't get credit for failing and lying to the American people about the inadequacies of the system.

Obama is being deceptive.

His transparency promise is just window-dressing.