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Statement of the Problem: The extreme difficulty if not impossibility to track federal spending. Information is either not available or so buried that even full time professionals have a difficult time obtaining all the relevant information. The process now is extremely daunting even to the professional.

 

Goal: To make the federal budget transparent, ie, so that the American citizen can gather all of the necessary information to determine how much money was spent, how it was determined such funds would be spent, and who was involved in these determinations in any particular area or field.

 

Vision: The ability to track federal spending would lead to reduction in waste, reduction in misdirection of funds, and improved use of taxes.

 

Means to accomplish this goal:

1). Bring together concerned individuals willing to commit to the project.

2). Coordinate the functions of diverse individuals to include legislators, journalists, politicians, computer technologists, business owners, academicians, scientists, students, social activists, etc.

3). Compose a detailed plan/document regarding the function and participation required.

4). The online tool should be designed to be accurate, easily searchable, efficient, rapid, etc.

5). The information obtained from the online tool could come from two sources; 1). Annotated, referenced, cited, statistically analyzed data and 2). Personal, anecdotal, opinion used to consolidate and drive public opinion towards consensus.

6). The tool should be free to the public. Commercial application of potential uses of the site could be developed to support and sustain the site.

 

First steps:

1). Start with a project that will validate success. This will convince stakeholders of the feasibility of the project.

2). Secondly, tackle a harder problem. If successful, this will convince the most skeptical to support the endeavor.

 

Potential Uses: For concerned groups to track funding in education, agriculture, medical spending, research, military spending, etc.

 

Potential Outcomes: A more efficient and effective government process.

 

Cost: To begin to construct this online tool the following funds are required:

 

Initial Budget for:

Personnel:

Meeting costs;

Tools:

Etc.