Tracking spending, and the companies that do the work

Since it's Sunshine Week, a good time to be noting some of the places that are shining light on government operations, like the Sunlight Foundation, whose projects I've linked to a couple times over the last few months. The link goes to their blog, which has links to the projects, like Congresspedia, The Revolving Door, and FedSpending.org, and postings about other open government sites.

In the news today, the Heritage Foundation has added to this range of information with a Federal Spending Book of Charts. View or download charts like Pork Projects, 1991-2007.

Congressional 'Earmarks' have been getting a lot of attention, and now the OMB has posted a website to track them: Earmarks.

On the spending side, a couple of federal contracting companies worth longer looks have been highlighted on Facing South, with lots of background and links: Troops deserve better than then lowest bidder discusses IAP Worldwide Services, a company based in Jacksonville and run by former Halliburton executives. It was the company that handled privatized services at Walter Reed, and was also responsible for the FEMA/Katrina ice disaster. According to this, the company has also been awarded a $103 million contract for the IRS.

And, here's a Katrina-related story with an interesting twist that goes back to the interesting pre-governorship history of Jeb Bush: N.O. pump problems renew cronyism concerns. The company, Moving Water Inc., of Deerfield Beach, FL, was marketed once by Bush-El, a partnership between MWI's David Eller and the former Florida governor (pre-election). Lots of time and effort went into trying to prove allegations about Bush-El's questionable deals in Nigeria, which remain under investigation according to the Facing South posting.
Amazing how some of these old stories keep coming back.