Consumer Groups Say Recovery Site Falls Short

March 11, 2009— -- The Office of Management and Budget proudly told Congress last week that since the Obama administration unveiled its Web site recovery.gov to track how the nearly $787 billion in economic stimulus funds will be spent, the site has received about 150 million hits.

The number astounded Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut , chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

"One-hundred fifty million hits in 2½ weeks?" asked Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. "It reflects both the anxiety and the emergency" felt by the American people.

In response, Robert L. Nabors II, deputy director of the OMB, said, "There are people who just want to see how their money is being spent."

But while President Obama appears on recovery.gov saying the site allows taxpayers to scrutinize how their dollars are invested, some consumer groups fear that the Web site, as it is set up, falls short of the government's promise to keep the expenditures for the stimulus completely transparent.

Good Jobs First, a group that's tracking the money, worries that consumers may have a hard time searching the site, which launched Feb. 17.

"The fact that recovery.gov is getting such traffic tells us people want to watch where their money is going," executive director Greg LeRoy said. "But right now the system doesn't give them the details it needs."

LeRoy said there is time for the administration to improve the Web site, as many states have yet to receive their stimulus funds. But he worries that the original OMB guidance fails to require states to provide information on the outcomes of particular projects.

"So far, there is no requirement, for example, to list how many homes have been weatherized or how many roads have been created or how many new broadband customers have been added," LeRoy said.

He also expressed concern that the site doesn't have the technical functions to make it consumer-friendly.

"The site should have a search function so you could search a project by ZIP code, by city, by contractor," he said. "As it stands now, there is no way a consumer can effectively track and analyze the actions of the government."