One of the most exciting things about finally having a Democratic administration in office is that it sets the right goals and hires the right people.
One of Barack Obama's most laudable goals is to have a government that is transparent to its citizens. His Recovery.gov site which promises to "track every last dime of the stimulus spending is one of the most laudable federal projects in recent memory.
Even better is the impressive public servant that President Obama has pegged to head up the operation, Earl Devaney:
Unfortunately, Mr. Devaney has been given a nearly impossible mandate.
By his own admission:
"I am concerned about data quality," said Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. "The federal government's systems have never been fully successful at producing timely and reliable data."
Devaney has been stuck with a classic unfunded mandate:
"Recovery.gov is not currently a usable database," said Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), the committee's chairman. "I fully recognize the difficulties in this task, but this funding needs uniform standards for all reporting of information."
I'm going to be following the progress of Recovery.gov because I believe it is a great start to solving a very important problem, but its just a start.