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White House Gets Green by Putting Federal Budget Online
coondoggie writes "Looking to save $1 million, 20 tons of paper, or close to 500 trees, the White House said today President Bush's 2009 Federal Budget will for the first time be posted online. The E-Budget will be available for downloading at the Office of Management and Budget Web site on Feb. 4. Typically the White House has paper-bombed congress and anyone else who wanted to read the budget with a tome which can reach 3,000 pages and weighed multiple pounds each."
Now, all we need to figure out is how to let the constituency modify it.
This is an exercise that is left to the reader.
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Actually more like -$[some amount of money]
Because office lasers and related supplies cost more than a bulk printing center.
They could probably buy every member of congress a Kindle and still save in the end.
Actually.
Why DONT they buy every member of congress a kindle, that way they can get instant EVDO downloads of every bill that is ever submitted to congress, whenever, wherever they are? And search it.
So they save a million? Wow, know how else to save money? STOP WAGING WAR YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS!
Do you have any idea how much harder it is to hide Pork in a searchable document with revision history then a 20 pound stack of paper? Like this would really take off.
That assumes one thing:
That anyone in congress actually cares about reading any of the bills.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Paper is a renewable resource like rice or strawberries. It's grown on farms like any other crop. They aren't out there chopping down ancient redwoods for paper.
The issue of going paperless to save the planet was always bogus. Driving a mile in a car has a much larger impact on the planet than printing a page.
"The only way the White House is going to get green with the current president is if they call the painters with lots of green paint."
But knowing this administration, the paint would no doubt be lead-based...
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"The only way the White House is going to get green with the current president is if they call the painters with lots of green paint."
But knowing this administration, the paint would no doubt be lead-based...
So let me get this straight:
The White House, under President Bush, does something that just about everyone considers green, savings hundreds of trees, and is even a bit geeky, and the only thing you people can do is bash him?!? I have never seen a group of people who were more close minded and blinded by their own biased to the point of bigotry outside of Air Amerika.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
that's a good start, however for some time now I've been thinking that the government should be publishing real time expenses online through an easy to use interface. I live in Toronto, Ontario and our city has been suffering on the verge of bankruptcy even though the budget from the taxes is over 7.5 billion CAD/year. About 60% of the money goes to the unionized city workers, which is a shame, there is no competition for the city contracts really, it's all government based mafia. This is not a surprise given that the city is governed by an NDP idiot-troll and the province is yet again in the hands of a liberal pathological lier.
I would like to see the government's bank statements on line. If the city gets the 7.5 billion CAD a year from the taxes, I would like to see the current balance, look at all expenses in detail. If a million is given away here, another million there, I would like to see the details of every transaction.
If the city mayor suffers a defeat on his crazy tax proposals (something he concocted instead of looking at balancing the budget the correct way, without immediately imposing new taxes the NDP way,) then the mayor wants to punish the city with meaningless reduction in working hours of community centers and libraries, I want to see the savings in the budget. Of-course the truth is that there was no savings, since the union city workers are still sitting in those centers and libraries because the union will not allow the city not to pay these people and the only sufferers are the citizens who cannot use these public resources.
The government does not want the citizens to be able to see detail of every dollar that is spent, because if we did see these details, we would revolt.
You can't handle the truth.
Seems to me that defense is one of the top priorities, according to the constitution.
You don't need to outspend every other nation in the world, combined, when you are surrounded by two friendly nations and the world's largest oceans.
I didn't see anything about education in that document so that is supposed to be left up to the states.
The Constitution grants the authority to Congress to promote the general welfare and make laws to that effect, and your general welfare is going to be pretty piss poor without education.
Doing the math, it appears the Big Dig was about 1/70th the price of the Iraq war. (Oh, and did I mention tens of thousands of people not being slaughtered?)
60% Old People, 20% Sick People, 15% Military (offense and defense), 4% other domestic concerns, 1% bridges in Alaska.
paintball
disclosure of all budget items.
I believe Texas is one of them. It apparently does cause legislators a lot of grief to the point many try to find ways to eliminate or bypass the requirement.
If only we could force the US government to be totally open people might get disgusted with the current crop of Democrats and Republicans to maybe do something
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Because Bush and his administration have proven time and again that they are only out for themselves, and don't give a shit about the American people or even the American environment, let alone the world as a whole.
There will be some self serving reason this has been done, whether to save money so it can be siphoned off elsewhere, or perhaps to increase bandwidth usage as people download instead (im sure bush has ties to isps/telcos, but doesn't stand to benefit from the government printing office having more work to do), or maybe to increase sales of printer ink/toner since most people will just print this themselves, using far less efficient devices than a large printing press would. Or it could be just an attempt at getting some cheap positive PR.
The motivation behind it certainly won't have been helping the environment, that's merely a side effect of whatever the true motive is.
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Does your department have a budget? Now break down the US government until it's the size of your department. I think you'll find 3000 pages is still summary level.
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