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."

Comments

cash4cronies

[Anonymous Coward]

$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)

Re:cash4cronies

[MindStalker]

Your shocked they are giving the contract an existing large military tech contractor? Or are you shocked that an existing large military contractor is giving campaign contributions to the house majority leader?

Personally I'm with the latter, why should they need to continually bribe if their foot is already in the door.

Re:cash4cronies

[Red Flayer]

$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)

And the same company gave tens of thousands of dollars to the House majority leader when the House was controlled by Republicans.

This is not a partisan issue, I hope you weren't trying to make it into one. Because that would dodge the core issue.

This is just another example of a fundamental flaw in how campaign finance works in the US, and the current party in power shares the culpability with the prior party in power.

Re:cash4cronies

[roc97007]

> This is just another example of a fundamental flaw in how campaign finance works in the US, and the current party in power shares the culpability with the prior party in power.

A fair, reasoned, objective response. This is slashdot! Not allowed!

Re:cash4cronies

[ShakaUVM]

>>This is just another example of a fundamental flaw in how campaign finance works in the US, and the current party in power shares the culpability with the prior party in power.

Out of curiosity, since corporations can't vote, why should they be allowed to donate money to campaigns at all?

Re:cash4cronies

[cml4524]

Two things:

1) Corporate personhood: the notion that a corporation is a person entitled to the same rights as a natural person, or some subset of those rights (e.g. due process, free speech, etc.)

2) Money as free speech: the notion that campaign donations are a form of constitutionally protected speech

Therefore, a person - or company legally recognized as a person - cannot be restricted from donating money to a campaign because that would be an infringement on their constitutionally-recognized right to free political speech.

The legitimacy of this position, and either of its two components individually, has been and continues to be a matter of substantial debate.

Re:cash4cronies

[BCW2]

Proves what I have said for years: Party doesn't matter, they are all crooks and only worthy of our contempt!

You can not come up with a website complicated enough to justify an $18 million price tag!

Every member of Congress who voted for Spendulous without reading it should be recalled or impeached!

Re:cash4cronies

[MozeeToby]

Most large corporations rely on Political Action Committees to raise money which is then donated to one of two groups.

1) Politicians who support that business sector, geographical area, or tax breaks. I really don't have a huge problem with that, essentially this is individuals donating money to people who will work to improve conditions for the business they work for. Though I would prefer to see a system where you can only donate if you can vote in the election, with the current situation of national and multinational interests that may not be possible. For example, the company I work for has offices all over the US but the main office is in Iowa, if taxes go up in Iowa that would effect all the employees no matter where they work.

2) Politicians who are willing to grant 'favors' in exchange for contributions. This is where the real problems begin. Pork barrel spending, pet projects, and downright bribes. The only way I can foresee this going away is to make all campaign contributions anonymous which at best would be an accounting nightmare. Either that or outlaw PACs and other groups that pool contributions into a single fund, but there would be nothing to prevent an unofficial system from springing up to replace them.

Re:cash4cronies

[Hijacked Public]

Because the sort of person who requires a bribe in exchange for awarding a contract probably doesn't care who has a foot in the door, they care only about the bribe.

Duke Cunningham made lists and, although there were some advantages of scale in his bribe menu, there were no 'foot in the door' clauses.

Re:cash4cronies

[jmorris42]

> This is not a partisan issue, I hope you weren't trying to make it into one.

Agreed. It is a general problem.

> This is just another example of a fundamental flaw in how campaign finance works in the US,

Here is where we part company. It has exactly zero with campaign finance. You are upset about a symptom of the problem. The problem is the size and scope of government. A Congresscritter makes a lot more than an average slob but compare the 535 members of the legislative branch with the 500 leaders of the 'corporate branch' (CEOs of the Fortune 500) of our society and ponder. But at those levels it is about POWER as much as MONEY. Which group has more power? Now you begin to understand why a seat that pays so little is worth spending several million every two years to keep. And why the corporations will invest so much into politicians.

When the corporations very survival depends on the whims of political class it would be stupid not to invest as much time and energy into controlling that factor as they spend on any other aspect of success with so much potential to affect the bottom line. Take the example everyone here loves to hate, MSFT. Until the government took such an intense interest in their operations their Washington DC office was vestigial, now it is a major presence. Just like every other major corporation, they either want to deflect the government's gaze or get their snout into the public treasury.

And it will be ever thus until we put the government back into it's proper place. Make the government small enough that a House seat isn't worth millions and the money will go away. Nothing else will work, no law will stop clever people who have so much at stake. At least no law that leaves the 1st Amendment intact and do we really want to go there?

Re:cash4cronies

[city]

god damn it, dont give them any ideas!

I mean...

I, for one, welcome our new suffrage yielding corporate overlords.

Re:cash4cronies

[DarKnyht]

If you look up the history of that, it became that way because of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. To quote wikipedia (I know, but you can find better sources):

The Supreme Court never reached the equal protection claims. Nonetheless, this case is sometimes incorrectly cited as holding that corporations, as juristic persons, are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.[2] Although the question of whether corporations were persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment had been argued in the lower courts and briefed for the Supreme Court, the Court did not base its decision on this issue. However, before oral argument took place, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite announced: "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."[3] This quotation was printed by the court reporter in the syllabus and case history above the opinion, but was not in the opinion itself. As such, it did not have any legal precedential value.[4]

Nonetheless, the persuasive value of Waite's essentially ultra vires statement did influence later courts, becoming part of American corporate law without ever actually being enacted by statute or formal judicial decision.[5][clarification needed] For these reasons, it is literally an unprecedented extension of constitutional rights to US corporations.[2]

Re:cash4cronies

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah totally. Last time I did a site redesign it was for a friend and I made only about $5000 for 3 weeks of work. It was an online sales system I slapped together with some JSP and a couple of Servlets, so it wasn't just basic HTML. If I had realized I could charge her $18,000,000 for it, I would have cut her a friendly break and only charger $10,000,000 for it. Man was I cheated.

Re:cash4cronies

[Anonymous Coward]

Only persons who can vote should be allowed to donate to campaigns. Can corporations vote? Nope - so no donations from them.

Re:cash4cronies

[nine-times]

That is good information, but my question was more as to the philosophical/economic/sociological reasons why it makes sense to grant them "personhood". What kind of bad stuff do people expect to happen if we say corporations are not "people", and do not have the right to make political contributions.

I mean, besides the politicians who expect their money to go away.

Re:cash4cronies

[rho]

When somebody tells you that a corporation is considered a person, that person is talking out of their ass.

A corporation is a legal entity. It is not a person. It shares some privileges with people, but that's a different thing altogether. Somebody, once, used the analogy of "a corporation as a person" and now we've got a lot of half-witted nonsense floating around because of it.

Next person that tells you "a corporation is like a person", ask them how many businesses they've incorporated. If it's zero, you're perfectly within your rights to kick them in the knee.

Re:cash4cronies

[rho]

This is just another example of a fundamental flaw in how campaign finance works in the US, and the current party in power shares the culpability with the prior party in power.

I've a question: how come it's always obviously graft when Republicans do it, but it's a sign that the system is flawed when Democrats do it?

Why can't it be simple vote-buying no matter who does it? And why hasn't tar-and-feathering made a comeback yet?

Re:cash4cronies

[Red Flayer]

1) Corporate personhood: the notion that a corporation is a person entitled to the same rights as a natural person, or some subset of those rights (e.g. due process, free speech, etc.)

That's largely a myth. Corporations do have legal rights, but by no means is there "personhood" attached to coporations legal status. Especially in regards to campaign finance -- Corporations are very limited with regards to donations to political campaigns. Instead, individuals at corporations make the contributions. While it's similar to the corporation making the donation, this is why listings of contributions include the employer of the person who makes the contribution. Case in point, the company awarded this contract made -zero- contributions to anyone's campaign. The president, and other employees of the company, did. I worded my previous post poorly when I said that the corporation made contributions.

2) Money as free speech: the notion that campaign donations are a form of constitutionally protected speech

While this point definitely has merit, it has to be balanced against the cost of allowing cash to determine our elections, and the effect the cash has on awarding of contracts, drafting of legislation, etc. This is a big reason why we have restrictions on campaign finance.

Re:cash4cronies

[sumdumass]

Actually, he probably with me and is shocked because no one is bitching about the administration, no bid contracts, millions of dollars being spent and payoffs to those responsible for the contract.

I guess maybe if haliburton or cheney was a name in the story, everyone would be pissed.

Re:cash4cronies

[sumdumass]

neither can ex-cons and felons in most states. Should they be able to donate to the legalize MJ candidates or donate to the candidate that is claiming to build new parks and clean up the environment?

Ability to vote does not determine the impact of the candidates running for office. Donating, even if it is labor or vocalized support should not be removed from anyone who is subject to the political processes, laws, and environment under each, even if they aren't allowed to vote themselves.

Re:cash4cronies

[PsiCTO]

Oh, this reminds me of a beaut I heard up here in Snowanada

It appears that a politician running for mayor in fair Calgary, Alberta, may accept funds from, say, land and commercial developers, for his campaign. What ever is left over is his/hers to keep, personally.

I bet they even get a discount on new homes in new developments...

Re:cash4cronies

[sumdumass]

The premise is more that they are separate people.

Corporations are nothing more the collections of people acting in liberty and enterprise in a collective way. Being a separate person means that the actions of the corporation which is not the result of the investors actions do not travel back to the investors. However, it doesn't absolve anyone who acted on behalf of the corporation or within it. So if the owner of a business incorporates, and still runs the business, they are not shielded from all liability because of the incorporation, but their silent partners will be to the extent beyond their investments.

If we were to get rid of the person aspect, then it's likely that you could be sued for Exxon's actions simply because you have their stock in your retirement account and took no part in whatever action happened. This question goes deeper then the ability to have speech on the laws and policies that would effect a corporation. This is because it is illegal to destroy or damage your corporation and it's ability to profit when others are invested in it too. The danger here is that certain political policies have the potential to do harm to some companies and if a corporate entity isn't separate, then your voting and political support could be interpreted to be harming or damaging the profitability of the corporation and you may have to support something you don't agree with to escape both civil and criminal repercussions.

Re:cash4cronies

[oatworm]

The trouble with making elections fully publicly funded is that you then need a way to determine how the public funds are disbursed. If you base it on previous results, the incumbent will always have an advantage. If you give equally to all candidates, you'll end up with hundreds of candidates for each race (keep in mind we don't have runoffs in the US). If you give only to certain candidates that you think might be "viable", you're then going to have to define what "viable" means - odds are, this will tick off third parties and prevent candidates like John Anderson or Ross Perot from gaining a foothold.

Keep in mind that, at the moment, corporations actually have less ability to directly contribute to a campaign than unions do. With a corporation, only people within the corporation may individually contribute (usually CEOs and the like). Unions, which are also a collective body of individuals, may contribute to campaigns directly. Of course, this also happens to include public sector unions - whether you think that's a good idea or a bad idea probably depends on your perspective, your thoughts on how much (or little) of a conflict of interest it might be for public sector unions to attempt to influence hiring and wage policies through the election process, and your general political inclination.

Re:cash4cronies

[gizmo_mathboy]

While corporations have personhood, I think it was the pesky 14th Amendment that brought this about, that does not mean they should have the right to vote. Yes, they have free speech rights but not necessarily participation in the electoral process.

I would go further and say that no organization should be able to contribute to a campaign, only individuals. So the DNC, nor the RNC nor any other body of people can give money. Sure it sucks for your favorite interest group but the power of groups is rotting our system.

Now, money as free speech has bothered me ever since the Supreme Court ruled it as such. Can one person be allowed to have more free speech than another? Does Bill Gates have a right to more free speech than a school teacher?

Re:cash4cronies

[Deosyne]

You don't buy politicians, you subscribe to them.

Re:cash4cronies

[Red Flayer]

Here is where we part company. It has exactly zero with campaign finance. You are upset about a symptom of the problem. The problem is the size and scope of government.

I agree we part ways there.

While there is a lot of cruft in government, I believe there is a need for the government to operate in areas where the public sector will not.

You see the root problem as the scope of the government. I see the root problem as the quality of the government's output.

I do not believe we should throw out the baby with the bathwater. Your ideal of the putting the government "back into it's proper place" would do just that. You, as a someone well read in history and economics, should know that 'small government' of the past led to enormous abuses of capital that resulted in far less than optimal outcomes for the country as a whole, for the common people, and for all but a select few of the elite. What is needed is a less wasteful government, not necessarily a smaller government.

We'll never agree on this point, I understand. But the government serves a lot of necessary roles, and we must be careful to ensure that we do not ignore these in a quest for small government.

And regarding the monetary value of holding office -- you're missing an entire aspect (though you alluded to it) that also results in suboptimal politics. Money is one motivator for those seeking higher office, but other motivations pose similar problems. People who seek office for prestige, for example. As long as we have elected offices of any kind, they will be a route to power (and thus profit) in the private sector due to the prestige that comes with being elected. So reducing the scope of government does not solve the problem, although it would help with that problem.

Re:cash4cronies

[jmorris42]

So which is it?

> Party doesn't matter,

and

> Every member of Congress who voted for Spendulous without reading it should be recalled or impeached!

You do know how the votes went on Porkulus, right? Or could you be bothered to actually, ya know, know what the hell you are talking about?

Porkulus got zero Republican votes in the House and three RINOs in the Senate. Senator Arlen Specter received so much heat from his vote he finally came out of the closet and became the moderate Democrat he has always voted as. Senators Collins and Snowe are both from Maine, and aren't really Republicans in any modern meaning of the word. So yes, Party did matter.

I'm with ya as far as wishing a pox on both their houses, but it is for very different reasons. Democrats are essentially an enemy of liberty these days, period. Republicans are wishy washy, unprincipled and frightened of their shadows. However, except for the old country club Republicans and east coast RINOs, most Republicans would like to do the right thing, at least when first elected.... but they need some balls... and to avoid the temptations of Washington. That is an easier problem to fix than making Democrats not be evil.

Re:cash4cronies

[Jawn98685]

When somebody tells you that a corporation is considered a person, that person is talking out of their ass.

Actually, no. They might well be citing established case law, including SCOTUS decisions, that very clearly bestow personhood on corporations.

Here is your reading assignment... http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/

Re:cash4cronies

[Golias]

Actually, he probably with me and is shocked because no one is bitching about the administration, no bid contracts, millions of dollars being spent and payoffs to those responsible for the contract.

I guess maybe if haliburton or cheney was a name in the story, everyone would be pissed.

Yep. I maintain that it is THE LEFT, after working so hard to elect Obama, who should be most pissed off at him right now. On economics, foreign policy, and even civil liberties, he's doing nearly everything which we were all supposed to be so enraged at Bush over, and in many cases, taking things farther.

As a libertarian, I kind of expected him to keep ballooning the federal spending and ruin what's left of the tattered economy which Bush left him. Right on schedule there, and I don't feel let down about it because I never had my hopes up.

What I find disappointing is that the unlawful detentions without trial, the wire-taps, the cronyism, the pointless foreign warmongering & gunboat diplomacy, the war on drugs, the denial of gay rights, the staged Q&A sessions, etc. etc. etc. ... all chug along with as much momentum as ever.

But hey, we (the taxpayers) now own a shitty car company, so I guess there's that.

Re:cash4cronies

[sydbarrett74]

You don't buy politicians, you subscribe to them.

PaaS = Politicians as a Service.

Re:cash4cronies

[Golias]

Other countries don't have our First Amendment rights.

I have the right to stand on a street corner and say, "hey, you should vote for Al Franken. What a swell guy!" *

I also have the right to pitch in with several friends and buy a billboard which says: "Al is swell! Vote for him!"

I furthermore have the right to pitch in with A LOT of people and buy 30 seconds on TV to say "Everybody in their right mind should vote for Al Franken."

I can even put together a "Tell People To Vote For Al" club, and ask other people who want to help me spread the word to send me money.

The problem with Campaign Finance Reform is, if it's "during the election cycle", I'm not allowed to do any of that stuff without falling under the strictly-regulated umbrella of Al Franken's campaign budget.

But Rupert Murdoch can spend 30 minutes a night, every night, on FOX News telling everybody how wonderful Norm Coleman is ** and how great it would be if we all voted for him. Likewise, he can buy the Minneapolis Star Tribune away from Gannet and run daily front-page articles crowing about Norm Coleman's legislative accomplishments and/or Al Franken scandals.

Campaign Finance laws which restrict, in any way, spending money on expressing an opinion about a sitting Senator or his opponent, are violations of our right to political speech, and furthermore hands the news media a monopoly on free expression

* This is a hypothetical example. Al Franken is not a swell guy. He's a complete choad.
** Norm Coleman - Also a complete choad.

Re:cash4cronies

[Sean0michael]

Only persons who can vote should be allowed to donate to campaigns. Can corporations vote? Nope - so no donations from them.

Then we ought not to tax corporations either. No taxation without representation!

Re:cash4cronies

[rho]

That's fascinating, but a corporation is still a legal entity that is not entitled to all the protections of the law in the same way that a person is.

"Kinda like a person" is, by definition, not a person. It's a convenient shorthand that gives people (real people, not corporation-people) the wrong impression. So stop it.

Re:cash4cronies

[tjonnyc999]

Because...
When a Republican changes his mind, he's a liar.
When a Democrat changes his mind, he's "seen the light" - or "gained a new awareness of the issues".

When a Republican raises taxes, he's a heartless bastard.
When a Democrat raises taxes, he's "taking necessary steps in a troubled time to keep the budget balanced".


...etc, etc.

Mass-media linguistic gymnastics, ain't it grand?

Re:cash4cronies

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

neither can ex-cons and felons in most states.

Actually, it is only 11 states that restrict ex-cons from voting. And it is extremely wrong-headed to make that restriction because it breeds an unrepresented underclass.

Finally we get our bailout

[religious freak]

Well, I've heard several web folks bitch about where their bailout was... and here it is!

Re:Finally we get our bailout

[ColdWetDog]

Just so I know how to direct my rage properly: am I supposed to be mad that the government is going to launch a site to add sunshine to the recovery bill grant process, or that they couldn't make it appear online for free?

I don't know about you, but I'm going to be a little pissed off at a web site that cost eighteen million dollars and doesn't have blackjack and hookers (which I'm presuming is the case).

If you're gonna spend money, fine. But spend it on useful things.

Re:Finally we get our bailout

[CorporateSuit]

I don't know about you, but I'm going to be a little pissed off at a web site that cost eighteen million dollars and doesn't have blackjack and hookers (which I'm presuming is the case).

It doesn't have blackjack and hookers, but it will have their receipts.

Re:Finally we get our bailout

[digitalgiblet]

Started to make a joke and decided not to. This isn't funny.

My guess is that on slashdot a really large percentage of the readers are capable of producing a website. A smaller percentage could make a good website and a really small percentage could make a website that will be every bit as good as the upcoming $18 million website from the govt 2.0.

Being good slashdotters, many of them would know of the concept of FOSS.

So the existence of FOSS means that it is possible to achieve this website for the cost of 1) servers, 2) bandwidth, 3) electricity, 4) infrastructure (building, etc), and 5) people to make/run/maintain the site.

Let's say we just take about $1 million and buy a really nice building somewhere. That may not get you much in DC, but all we need is a connection to the internet, right? I seem to heard something in the news recently about real estate and how some people are having trouble selling theirs. Maybe for $1 million dollars we could pick up a really nice building in the mid-west somewhere?

That leaves us $17 million to work with.

If we take the Google approach of buying cheap PC grade hardware and making a big distributed system, we could build a pretty nice farm for another $1 million. Right? Now we are down to $16 million.

If we run more than $100,000 a year for combined bandwidth and electricity, I'd be kind of surprised, so we're good for ten years on $1 million. That leaves $15 million.

That leaves people. So we have $15 million dollars to hire people to make and run a website. Let's spread that over ten years as well. That gives us $1.5 million per year. We'll pay every single one of them $100,000 a year. That means we can have 15 people. Realistically we only need the bulk of those people during the initial redesign, but why quibble? It's only money, right?

So laying it out that way, wouldn't you agree that we should be seeing one heck of a great website? Innovative and interactive indeed!

OMG! Just RTFA! The $18 million tag is not for 10 years, but only 5 years. Wow.

As for your sense of rage, that's up to you. You could feel rage that the government is spending more money for this than is necessary. You could equally feel a sense of irony that they are spending a large sum of money on a site meant to show you how well they are managing your money and not spending it frivolously.

How you react to the story is really up to you.

Re:Finally we get our bailout

[Rei]

Did it not occur to you that the lion's share of the budget is most likely for *collecting and assembling the information*? There are a huge number of entities involved here, including all 50 states and thousands of individual counties, each with their own data handing mechanisms.

Where's the Money Going?

[virtigex]

Will we be able to see where the money is going to redesign this web site? Will this amount of money be sufficient to ensure that it doesn't get hacked for, say, 24 hours, or do we have to pay extra for that?

First Item on list...

[Anonymous Coward]

$500 million: compiling a report on how much we are spending to report on what we spend...

WTF?

[Guspaz]

$18 million to redesign a website? WTF are they doing with it?

From TFA, they're going to spend $9.5 million over the next 6 months or so. Assuming $75k salaries for the web developers/DBAs/etc (generous), they'd be hiring 250 people to design a website.

And Americans wonder why they have such a big deficit.

Re:WTF?

[Nerdposeur]

If you think you have to hire web developers in the city where you live, you don't understand the web.

Re:WTF?

[aengblom]

$18 million to redesign a website? WTF are they doing with it?

From TFA, they're going to spend $9.5 million over the next 6 months or so. Assuming $75k salaries for the web developers/DBAs/etc (generous), they'd be hiring 250 people to design a website.

And Americans wonder why they have such a big deficit.

I'm guessing this isn't just build the web site, it's to build and run it through January 2014 (See the GSA press release). Remember, they have to buy equipment and bandwidth too, although I'm betting the biggest issue is collecting, entering and sorting the massive amounts of data related to all the projects. Still sounds like a lot of money.

Re:WTF?

[sucati]

sorry, you can outsource gov't contracts

Re:WTF?

[t0rkm3]

Sure you could... to a company in Oklahoma... Like another gov't agency does... FAA/DOT anyone?

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut your number of people in 1/2. The total cost of employing someone (benefits, facilities, management, HR, ...) is about 2X his or her salary.

OTH mabey we should look at this as stimulus spending for programmers.

Re:WTF?

[TooMuchToDo]

The cost of an employee is not just their pay, but the employer's portion of taxes, health insurance, 401(k)s, etc. A 75K/yr worker can easily cost an employer $125K/yr.

Disclaimer: Small business owner, I am.

Re:WTF?

[locallyunscene]

So the headline, and summary are misleading? It's not "18 Million for Website", but "18 Million for Design, Build, and Maintain a Publicly Accessible National Repository of All Gov't Spending for the next 5 Years"? Man, that's just not catchy enough to make a good headline.

Headline's good for a laugh, but it's a bit of a troll.

Re:WTF?

[TooMuchToDo]

A $75K/yr employee takes home $6250 monthly (pre-tax). Putting that in my surepayroll account nets me this:

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.

Re:WTF?

[HeavyDevelopment]

Well considering the $170 million the government spent on FBI software that didn't work (The FBI Software Upgrade That Wasn't), $18 million is par for the course. I'll be surprised if this recovery.gov get completed for $18 million. The FBI fiasco is an example of how government tech contractors reap millions in overruns. The contractors let the government clients run amok with their requests allowing huge scope creep, and when the project doesn't get completed within budget or on time, the contractor points to the client and blames them--knowing all the while the project was headed for disaster. It's a good paying gig if you can get it. The contractor for the FBI, Science Applications International Corp., had $7 BILLION in annual gross revenues as of 2006 when the Washington Post article was published. And you thought AIG had a good racket ;)

WTF? We're doomed

[mcgrew]

And I was so hopeful this administration wasn't going to be full of idiots like the last one was. Jesus, I could probably code their whole damned site in a day, I'm sure I could do it in a week (and it would be standards-compliant and work on your phone, too). Can I get millions?

I'm starting to understand the teabaggers.

Re:WTF? We're doomed

[east coast]

What? Were you really fooled into thinking that one administration was going to be heads and tails above another? If you were let me be the first to say I'm sorry.

Why is it that in a nation where we swing between two parties in power every decade or so that people really think that one has that much on the ball and the other is full of gimps and morons? The fact is that they're roughly the same entity and every couple voting cycles people get sick of hearing what one has to say and goes to the other to hear the same thing they were hearing from them the last time they got voted out of office. The difference is that most voters have an easier time remembering Terry Bradshaw's pass completion percentage from the 1975 season than the hollow promises made to them by politicians in the same time frame.

We will not see a truely progressive politician make it to the presidency until we get a viable third party. And even then it's a long shot.

Re:WTF? We're doomed

[Em Emalb]

57.7%. He was actually a highly over-rated QB. In today's game, he'd be kicked off the team or relegated to a 3rd string backup role before he ever had a chance to start that HOF career.

Look at his first three years worth of stats:

1970: 218 attempts 83 completions completion percentage of 38.1 TDs: 6 INTs: 24
1971: 373 attempts 203 completions completion percentage of 54.4 TDs: 13 INTs: 22
1972: 308 attempts 147 completions completion percentage of 47.7 TDs: 12 INTs: 12

He'd be out of the league by the time his third year started these days.

Re:WTF? We're doomed

[MindlessAutomata]

Not all of us want a "progressive politician"--I don't want a politician making my own life decisions and choices for me, whether it's a corrupt one or one that honestly believes that nonsense.

$18 million for a website

[frovingslosh]

Well, they can certainly say "come and see where you tax money is being wasted", one needs look no farther than the website.

This is idiotic

[alexborges]

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.

Already exists

[Anonymous Coward]

There's already a website that clearly illustrates where the tax dollars towards stimulus are going, in innovative and exciting ways!

I think it's called goatse.cx, or something like that.

Irony

[kevinNCSU]

You have to wonder if these people have either a wonderful sense of irony or no understanding of the word at all. To pay 18 million to create a website that will show where our money is going is so ludicrous I thought I had clicked the bookmark to go to The Onion instead.

Drupal

[Eddy Luten]

I wonder if they're going to replace Drupal or if they are cashing out $18 million for an interface/theme overhaul.

The Definition of "Design"

[waldoj]

Those of us who are website developers will recognize the misuse of "design" committed by ABC News here. To a layperson, "design" means "make" when it comes to websites. They're not spending $18M to redesign the website (presumably), but presumably on a total overhaul of the thing.

Re:The Definition of "Design"

[sycodon]

At $100,000 per employee, you could hire 10 developers, buy all the best equipment and development tools and spend 10 years on the project and still have money left over.

Remember, this is the kind of process they would bring to health care.

Re:The Definition of "Design"

[H0p313ss]

At $100,000 per employee, you could hire 10 developers, buy all the best equipment and development tools and spend 10 years on the project and still have money left over.

Remember, this is the kind of process they would bring to health care.

Someone in the government makes a bad IT contracting decision and that somehow reflects on how a health system will be run? Whatever you're smoking I want some.

Re:The Definition of "Design"

[basementman]

$18 million to overhaul the whole thing is still a ripoff. Unless they are burning money to power their webserver it's incredibly overpriced.

Re:The Definition of "Design"

[radtea]

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.

Re:The Definition of "Design"

[mcgrew]

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.

Re:The Definition of "Design"

[sycodon]

Ahem,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/katrina_what_the_media_missed.html

Summary:
No water Shortage.
No food Shortage.
No murders, rapes, etc.

It was all media bullshit that made for dramatic stories.

It may make you feel better to blame Bush for imaginary problems, but to the extend there were problems, Nagel and Blanco were the primary fuck ups. The most you can blame FEMA and Bush for is not telling the dipsticks in LA government to get the hell out of the way and then do what needed to be done.

Nagel should have evacuated the fucking city like he was asked to do.

Re:The Definition of "Design"

[radtea]

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.

We could save them about 17.9 million

[xednieht]

row_id , capital_account, account_name, date_paid, amount_paid, scum_sucking_leech_getting_my_tax_dollars, address

That's about all taxpayers really need. The other 17.9 million is pretty expensive lipstick for that pig.

Death and Taxes Poster

[WillAdams]

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

Counterexample

[oldhack]

They've better not "improve" it like they are doing it to slashdot.

well...

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that its not 18 million on just developing the site. To get that high of a numer they are probably redoing their entire infrastructure. You're talking licensing which in a corporate envioronment can hit 10 million easy.

Then you're also talking paying developers to create custom applications, build databases, etc..

If you've ever worked in a corporate environment dropping 10 million on an infrastructure is nothing. Not saying its right or ok, just saying most people probably have no idea the cost of things.

Re:well...

[david.emery]

This is a valid point, and I'd be interested to hear from Slashdotters with experience on what they think it would take to start from Ground Zero to produce a "production quality" (including IA/North Korea DDOS attack-proof) infrastructure & content, including hosting facility costs for, let's say, 5 years.

Re:well...

[xednieht]

Under $2 million.

It's an informational site, does not need marketing or any significant SEO per se, just cross-links from other .gov sites would be more than enough. Should not require intense graphics or multimedia.

Typically a rough estimate is about 10 man-hours per database field for dynamic sites start to finish. At $100/man-hour using that metric it would indicate there are 18,000 fields in the database that drives the site - utterly ridiculous. More likely there are 180 db fields and taxpayers are paying $10,000/man hour.

First pass

[evil_aar0n]

Don't forget: this is only the first pass. I'm sure there will be overruns, missed deadlines, re-designs, etc. This $18 mil is just the start.

Well, for free...

[tjstork]

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...

smartronix is obviously the right choice

[Fanolex]

for the implementation of innovative technologies and up to date standards on the web, what with their own homepage's use of a table-based design, inline javascript, and .NET with an utter lack of validation.

Read the RFP

[gorbachev]

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=9745fb34e48a36a32b4fc589c3e371cb&tab=core&_cview=1&cck=1&au=&ck=

The Federal Business Opportunities website listed this opportunity a few weeks ago (could've been up longer than that, who knows).

It's not "just a website". It's a bit of a cluster**** in terms of number of data sources, what they expect to do with the data, etc.

I've done my time (never again!) with sorting through data from various data sources and while the actual programming part is *usually* not that difficult (assuming the data is not too badly malformed), but there are so many problems with processes, dealing with crap data, exceptions, etc. that if I were bidding for this work, I'd inflate my estimates quite a bit, too.

Put it in perspective.

[copponex]

I get tired of these stories. You could claim it's a waste of money to spend 18 million for setting up a transparency website and then running it for a few years. But put these stories into perspective by visiting DefenseLink every day to view how much of your tax dollars are being "invested."

http://www.defenselink.mil/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=4067

Yesterday alone we awarded over 120 million dollars. The day before that we awarded over 500 million dollars in contracts - I got too disgusted to continue adding the numbers.

So, would I rather not waste 18 million dollars? Sure. But I'd rather spend it on something constructive than destructive. A website about government spending is way more valuable to me than another novel way to hunt and kill humans.

Its already available

[yishai]

You can get all the info on recovery.org for free. You would think the government could redirect their DNS name for a lot less $18 million. I'd do it for $18 for them.

.. and they want a 2nd stimulus?

[Billly Gates]

They can't even run a simple website without spending tens of millions of dollars and this is the same government that bankrupted social security. How many people would someone need to hire for $18,000,000 to run a simple website?

Now they want to put our great grandchildren further in debt by a second stimulus?

I admitted I voted for Obama because I assumed he would balance the budget like Clinton. In addition, I figured anyone could be more fiscally responsible than Bush and Hannity and Rush's fanatic complaints about him being a big spending liberal would be way off. I was proven wrong. Instead I have another idea if you want to help the economy. Cut government spending. After we have lower interest rates from less panicy government bond holders we will have a revenue increase and once books are balanced the need to hire again will return. If no one wants something a big check wont help the economy. The market needs to fix it and the government needs to help the market rather than prohibit it by making them pay for socialistic recovery schemes.