Tuesday morning is a significant moment in the long history of making the spending of the United States government more transparent to the American public.
On May 9th, federal agencies will officially begin reporting data in compliance with the open standards created under the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, the landmark legislation that cleared Congress in 2014. (It’s called the DATA Act, for short, which is how we refer to it today.) The data will start flowing to openbeta.USAspending.gov in the coming days and will eventually be transitioned to USAspending.gov, the long term online home of federal spending data.
In doing so, our government will give citizens, watchdogs, Congress and federal workers unprecedented public access to structured information about spending and open up new horizons for oversight, accountability, activism and innovation.