Steve Ballmer's New Project: Find Out How the Government Spends Your Money (theverge.com)

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer isn't satisfied with owning the Los Angeles Clippers and teaching at Stanford and USC. On Tuesday, the billionaire announced USAFacts, his new startup that aims to improve political discourse by making government financial data easier to access. A small "army" of economists, professors and other professionals will be looking into and publishing data structured similarly to the 10-K filings companies issue each year -- expenses, revenues and key metrics pulled from dozens of government data sources and compiled into a single massive collection of tables. From a report on The Verge: The nonpartisan site traces $5.4 trillion in government spending under four categories derived from language in the US Constitution. Defense spending, for example, is categorized under the header "provide for the common defense," while education spending is under "secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity." Spending allocation and revenue sources are each mapped out in blue and pink graphics, with detailed breakdowns along federal, state and local lines. Users can also search for specific datasets, such as airport revenue or crime rates, and the site includes a report of "risk factors" that could inhibit economic growth. The New York Times has the story on how this startup came to be.

Comments

Re:Here's how to Secure the Blessing of Liberty

[rcb1974]

Let me clarify: stop taxing us so much by reducing spending and having limited government like the founders wanted. The U.S. Treasury could start by creating money debt free and spending it into the economy, rather than borrowing money from the Fed at interest, and then having to pay the Fed hundreds of billions of dollars per year in interest.

Re:There are only four programs that matter

[rcb1974]

The following socialist programs should be eliminated completely: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. We need to roll the Federal government back to what it was prior to 1913. Then we might have "the blessings of liberty" again.

Re:It's data, not bumper stickers. Costs, not drea

[ChrisMaple]

Problem is leftists use bullshit to try to obscure the fact that their goal is to transfer all wealth to themselves
FTFY

Re:Idiotic nostalgia

[ChrisMaple]

The "problems that were not being adequately handled before those programs were created" were Democrats not having permanent mandatory control over every person in the country. Fortunately, the programs were not entirely successful in achieving this goal.