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Recovery.gov To Get $18 Million Redesign
barbarai notes a report by ABC News's Rick Klein: "For those concerned about stimulus spending, the General Services Administration sends word tonight that $18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site. "Recovery.gov 2.0 will use innovative and interactive technologies to help taxpayers see where their dollars are being spent," James A. Williams, commissioner of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, says in a press release announcing the contract awarded to Maryland-based Smartronix Inc. according to the ABC news blog."
$18 mil for a website and in a total coincidence the contract goes to a company run by people who have given tens of thousands of dollars to house majority leader Steny Hoyer (D)
Whomever is purchasing this is a plain idiot: there is NO WAY a site costs that much.
I mean, guys, the horrid system for paying taxes in Mexico is only two million more expensive than what they are attempting here and hey, the mexican system sort-of works (it has to: gov only takes taxes through the site nowdays).
That one is also hugely overpriced, but also my country has very poor transparency in government spending: we expect this kind of things to happen here in thirdworldland: are you guys heading this way?
If so, as a fellow citizen of the world, I bid you: TURN AROUND NOW.
Demand, regardless of partisanship, to know exactly how and in what is all that and all other money being spent.
Demos did it very well with halliburton (and now THATS money: 20 mil is chump change for those guys), reps should drive this one to the last consequences accordingly: without a vigilant opposition, democratic governments cannot be called that anymore.
NO SIG
I wonder if they're going to replace Drupal or if they are cashing out $18 million for an interface/theme overhaul.
For that kind of money they could put a copy of the ``Death and Taxes'' poster:
http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/
in almost every schoolroom and courtroom and courthouse in the country.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
sorry, you can outsource gov't contracts
You can go here: http://www.treatyist.com/issue1/mystimulus.aspx
It's a cheesy ASP.NET app that lets you build your own stimulus package. You can pick out all sorts of cool stuff like windmill farms, nuclear power plants, fiestaware for everybody, camaros and the country of iceland.
It's not much more than a day's labor... but, if you want to imagine what could have been done with 800 billion dollars of stimulus money, it's kinda fun. It's my own stupid page but its relevant to the discussion and besides, its almost amusing to see how hopelessly confused Google is at it serving ads when trying to match text with iceland, fiestaware, and assault rifles...
This is my sig.
Remember, this is the kind of process they would bring to health care.
This is not flamebait, but a perfectly reasonable opinion on the ability of the American government to deliver the goods on any given program.
I am a citizen of a country where we have a reasonably cheap and good universal public health care system, and I've lived in the States and seen up-close-and-personal the appalling mess that is your current health care system, and how badly you need a universal system of the kind found in Germany, France, Australia, Canada, or elsewhere.
But the reality is that the American government has shown itself repeatedly unable to manage much of anything very well. There is a systemic dysfunctional culture that is the result of Party members focusing on Party priorities rather than anything that is good for the American people.
If the core problem of Partisan capture of the American government is not fixed, the odds of it being able to create anything other than a bigger mess with universal health care are depressingly high.
This is not a problem with universal health care, which everywhere has a lower cost and better outcomes than the American system: in Canada we pay less for our universal public system than Americans pay for their limited and inadequate Medicare and Medicaid systems, and we live long, more healthy lives. But if an organization as fundamentally broken as the American federal government tried to run such a system it would almost certainly screw it up entirely, based on recent experience in everything from Iraq reconstruction to the Yucca Mountain fiasco.
It's a pity that the nation that once was able to organize and execute the first human landing on the moon forty years ago is no longer able to do much of anything effectively, but until that problem is solved there is a legitimate argument to be made that a universal public health care system in the US should be the least of your priorities, because Americans just aren't up to the problem of running such a system effectively.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Monthly Gross pay: $6,250.00
Direct Deposit Total $4,971.24
Employee Taxes $1,278.76
Employer Taxes $721.88
Processing Fees $46.80
Amount Electronically Transmitted $7,018.68
This doesn't include the $1200/month in health insurance costs I pay on single workers, or up to $2500-$3000/month I pay for married workers with a family. Throw in our 401k fees (all that the business shoulders) as well as the 401k match, and it gets pretty close to the number I specd pretty fast. Try to not come off as such a tool next time.
Remember, this is the kind of process they would bring to health care.
Ok, this is oftopic but I'll respond anyway, just because I've lost friends because they had no health care. You may be right and they may fuck it up royally, but just because government does something doesn't always mean they do it badly. They only do it badly if the people they hire to do it are incompetent.
My city's government (Springfield) owns our power company, CWLP (whose manager, Todd Renfrow, is a dead ringer for Mr. Burns; do a google image search). We have the cheapest and most reliable electricity in the state. The problem isn't bad government, the prpoblem is bad PEOPLE in government. It took five days to get water to the Superdome because Bush hired an incompetent crony to run FEMA. Had we a competent President who appointed people for skillsets rather than good old buddies, Katrina wouldn't have been the clusterfuck it was.
But when you elect people to government who think that government is always the problem and never the solution, you're not going to have very good government.
Free Martian Whores!
just because government does something doesn't always mean they do it badly.
The track record of the US federal government in the past 20 years is appallingly bad, and pointing fingers at specific members of the Party is misleading and distracting from the central issue, which is that the US federal government is systemically broken.
The Yucca Mountain debacle is iconic in this regard: members of both wings of the Party failed over multiple administrations and changes in congressional control to effectively implement a solution for disposing of nuclear waste. This cannot be blamed on particular individuals, but on the system of government itself.
Until you guys figure out how to free your federal government from Party control, you're going to continue to see messes like Katrina. Not because you just happen to elect crappy people, but because the Party ensures that the people you elect will always be answerable to the Party, and not the people.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.