Recovery.gov Tells You Where Your Money Went — After A Mere $9-18 Million Makeover!

Published on July 12th, 2009

How in the hell does a website cost that kind of money? Are they using the Microsoft model of product development?

Well, Recovery.gov (or is it Recvoery.gov?) needs more than nifty diagrams of money that may or may not have already been spent, so the tech-savviest administration ever went looking for a vendor. It succeeded in getting one to redesign the site for a mere $18 million:

The new Web site promises to give taxpayers more information about where their money is going than the current version of the 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. “Armed with easy access to this information, taxpayers can make government more accountable for its decisions.”

The contract calls for spending $9.5 million through January, and as much as $18 million through 2014, according to the GSA press release. [...]Maybe someday we can pay $13 million for a site that will track the $18 million-dollar tracking site redesign, a year after the fact.
[...]The changes to the site are necessary to live up to the promises Obama made about transparency when passing the stimulus.
[...]Of course, because the necessary changes will be taking place after more than $100 billion has been spent, and during a summer when the administration has promised to increase the speed of spending (Although who knows by how much? Not the White House!), there’s no way to tell how much of that money has been lost to waste or fraud and how much has been spent wisely.

Or, is there? At Recovery.org, a site run by a private company whose job it is to track government spending and contract processes, there’s real-time tracking of stimulus spending. They normally collect and sell such information to businesses looking for government contracts, but decided to chart the stimulus because they realized they could deliver what Obama had promised.

So the government isn’t buying Recovery.org because…?

53 users responded in " Recovery.gov Tells You Where Your Money Went — After A Mere $9-18 Million Makeover! "

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# 1 TruthBeKnown said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:05 am

Oh, but Uncle Dave. This article is in The Weekly Standard. We all know that this is a conservative rag so we must discount the facts.

# 2 jbenson2 said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:41 am

A very weak and impotent $18 million website for citizens.

Search Results:

Los Angeles: Your search yielded no results

San Francisco: One result to upgrade earthquake networks

Chicago: Two results – a public listening session (huh?) and a VP Biden announcement to help children and prevent disease (the Messiah is going to save us all).

The majority of the money will be used to purchase vaccines.

And to get more info on how the Obama administration is going to prevent diseases, they refer you to another link for another organization down the rabbit hole.

# 3 Mike D said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:52 am

Government bailout? All I have witnessed are the trillion + dollars being given away to banks, companies, and special interests with no real accountability. In the public interest – what a sick joke on the American people. Failed companies still giving out multi-million dollar bonuses to their top executives (AIG is one). How in the name of sanity can you expect the same criminals that got us into this mess to fix it? Based on what I see their only interest in lining their pockets. Government by special interests for special interests. What about the average citizen – losing jobs, homes, life’s savings? I guess we don’t count for anything. Just keep playing those play stations and bling bling.
As for the “leadership”. Both government and corporate, it is hard for someone to understand a problem when their livelihood depends on their not understanding the problem.

# 4 memesisai said, on July 12th, 2009 at 6:05 am

What a bunch of retards!

# 5 Mr Diesel said, on July 12th, 2009 at 6:12 am

Change we can believe in.

# 6 Patrick said, on July 12th, 2009 at 6:18 am

And these same idiots what to take over H.C. to make it more efficient? What idiots believes they can do that?

# 7 Jägermeister said, on July 12th, 2009 at 6:38 am

In comparison… $18m is about

~ the cost of one AH-64 Apache
~ the cost of four M1A2 Abrams
~ 1/5 of the cost of a Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
~ 1/78 of the cost for the Halliburton overcharges classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and Unsupported
~ 1/100 of the cost for a SSN-774 (Virginia) class submarine
~ 1/555 of the money mismanaged & wasted in Iraq, per Feb 2007 Congressional hearings
~ the same cost as 66 minutes of war in Iraq (2008 cost)

But then again… Republican presidents are known as fiscal conservatives.

# 8 Chris said, on July 12th, 2009 at 6:53 am

#7 – Right, because that comparison even makes sense. I’ll show you where you can have that wesbsite redesigned for 1/10th the price (probably less) and you show me where we can save on military weapons.

# 9 Jägermeister said, on July 12th, 2009 at 7:26 am

#8 – Chris – … and you show me where we can save on military weapons.

Manufacture them in China. Isn’t that the wet dream of all Republicans? Cheap = high profit.

# 10 Fibs at the Workplace said, on July 12th, 2009 at 8:07 am

And you think that you told lies and fibs to the boss at work ?

# 11 RSweeney said, on July 12th, 2009 at 9:02 am

And to think that some people want these idiots running medical care for everyone.

# 12 chuck said, on July 12th, 2009 at 9:06 am

The reason it will cost (at least) $18 million is because it will be done according to government development and procurement rules.

So before a programmer or web designer can write a single line of a page, a sub-group will write a 300-page report about the page, which will be considered by a sub-committee which will produce a 500-page report in response.

Then the procurement department will produce a 3,000 page RFP based on the sub-committee report. Successful applications will have to produce reports (in triplicate) before establishing a guidance committee which oversees the project.

Finally 3 programmers will get together in room, argue about whether to use JSP, .ASP, PHP or Perl and eventually produce a web-page.

But, by then, an investigation will have to launched by the Justice department to determine why Microsoft’s implementation of Javascript sucks so badly.

# 13 allstar said, on July 12th, 2009 at 9:08 am

#7 #9
Let it go Jägermeister. Every time waste is pointed out by the Obama administration you immediately point to the Republicans.

In case you haven’t noticed this is a Democrat ballgame now. No one to blame but Obama and his Democrat congress of fools.

No Web site cost 9 to 18 million dollars. This can only be another wealth transfer scheme by your beloved Kenyan leader.

# 14 Mr. Fusion said, on July 12th, 2009 at 9:48 am

Although I think there are a lot of costs being associated with this web site that would have to be absorbed somewhere, this is still a very high price.

It probably rates up there with a Statue of Liberty fly past in the AF 1. Someone’s job should be on the line.

# 15 ECA said, on July 12th, 2009 at 10:01 am

Lets see.
1 site OVER BUILT, and over paid for.
$18 million for WHAT..I looked at the site.

I would HOPE there is something there, beyond what we are seeing, as well as a contract to keep the site updated for AT LEAST 10 years.

http://www.recovery.gov/?q=node/668

# 16 Rick's Cafe said, on July 12th, 2009 at 10:22 am

$600 toilet seats, $18million website – RHINOs are just as dumb as liberals with taxpayer monies.

All the more reason that NO-ONE in Washington should be involved in our daily lives, including medical care.

# 17 Cap'nKangaroo said, on July 12th, 2009 at 10:35 am

Interesting.

I went to dotgov site and saw a poorly designed site that makes my eyes glaze over with govspeak and abbreviations, a map that doesn’t tell much. I could probably spend all afternoon looking on the site and never find out anything about what is going on in my county that would be meaningful/understandable.

I went to dotorg site and got a map that you can drill down to your state and even your county. In three mouse clicks I learned of 6 projects using stimulus money. Two were for computers/office equipment in a local school district, three were for water/sewer improvements, and the last was to replace some of the regional mass transit buses with hybrid buses as well as solar-powered bus shelters.

The privately run site is immeasurably more efficient at producing a measure of “transparency” than the government site.

Heck, just redirect the dotgov site to the dotorg site and save $18 million.

# 18 Jägermeister said, on July 12th, 2009 at 10:38 am

#13 – allstar

And I’m sure sure you whined when Dubya pissed away the first 100 billion dollars on the war in Iraq, right? No? Why not?

And since when is Obama Kenyan?

# 19 allstar said, on July 12th, 2009 at 10:43 am

#18
Hey Jägermeister – are you mentally retarded?
Dubya gone – Obama screwing us.
What’s so difficult to understand?

# 20 Jägermeister said, on July 12th, 2009 at 12:37 pm

#19 – allstar

Wow… intelligent comeback. All your fellow Republican futards are standing in awe.

# 21 jescott418 said, on July 12th, 2009 at 12:45 pm

Since when does our government know where the money goes? Democrats or Rebublicans it just does not matter. Looks liberals can spend money just as well as conservatives.

# 22 allstar said, on July 12th, 2009 at 2:44 pm

#20-Jägermeister-All your fellow Republican futards are standing in awe.

Not likely since it takes more to impress Republicans than Democrat sheeple.

Place a guy who can read a teleprompter in front of a democrat and you’re all nose up the ass impressed. Pathetic.

# 23 Jägermeister said, on July 12th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

#22 – allstar – Place a guy who can read a teleprompter in front of a democrat and you’re all nose up the ass impressed.

Like this guy? A charming cocaine head and alcoholic who became the President of the USA, because his power base was an army of stupid people – like you – couldn’t see through his folksy image. His incompetence cost thousands of lives on September 11, 2001 and many more in the wars that followed.

# 24 Mr. Fusion said, on July 12th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

# 20, Jag,

Wow… intelligent comeback.

And some wonder why I use the term “right wing nut” so often.

# 25 allstar said, on July 12th, 2009 at 3:43 pm

#23-Jägermeister-A charming cocaine head and alcoholic who became the President of the USA

Yeah that’s right the charming coke-head who lied his way into the White House that the stupid democrat sheeple selected to be their lord and master.

The guy who couldn’t find a thought unless prompted by a – you got it – a teleprompter. You know, your basic dick with ears.

# 26 qb said, on July 12th, 2009 at 4:19 pm

allstar said “A charming cocaine head and alcoholic who became the President of the USA”

You’re talking about George W. Bush, right?

# 27 Patrick said, on July 12th, 2009 at 4:23 pm

# 21 jescott418 said, “Looks like liberals can spend money just as well as conservatives.”

Where do you think Repubs learned the craft?

Anyway, all this spending is for nothing, just like the Bush era. Most Americans now realize this as evidenced by the O’Mama’s sliding poll numbers…

# 28 Jägermeister said, on July 12th, 2009 at 4:24 pm

#24 – Mr. Fusion

LOL – They’re the Fox News educated generation. Pure simpletons.

#25 – allstar

Dubya was a great speaker and a real class act.

# 29 qb said, on July 12th, 2009 at 4:38 pm

This is a sort of, kind of a tech blog, right? Doesn’t anyone care that *cough* IBM *cough* has their mitts all over this?

# 30 allstar said, on July 12th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

#28-Jägermeister-Dubya was a great speaker and a real class act.

I see your Alzheimer’s is kicking in. Let me repeat again.

Dubya is gone – Obama is the one screwing us.

Try to keep up.

# 31 qb said, on July 12th, 2009 at 4:45 pm

#30 “Dubya was a great speaker”

ROTFL You’re killing me dude, stop it. I will say this about the man, he was a great Ivy League party animal in his day.

Party on, Garth.

# 32 ECA said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:02 pm

all star.
HOW long does it take to change what WAS done?

Think about some person borrowing your car, and crashing it.
How long would it take the insurance company to FIX it. And would it drive properly AFTER you got it back?
YOU try to convince 300 people to give up ALL they got under Bush Jr.

# 33 allstar said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

#32-ECA=HOW long does it take to change what WAS done?

How long does it take Obama to spend more money than all of his predecessors combined and the car is still not fixed?

Bush is gone – Obama is the one screwing us.

# 34 Jägermeister said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:11 pm

#26, #31 – qb

He’s quoting me.

#29 – qb – Doesn’t anyone care that *cough* IBM *cough* has their mitts all over this?

Yes, it smells consultants…

#32 – ECA

Good post.

# 35 Jägermeister said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:13 pm

#33 – allstar – How long does it take Obama to spend more money than all of his predecessors combined and the car is still not fixed?

Stop watching Fox News… it’s not good for you.

# 36 allstar said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:25 pm

#35-Jägermeister

Ahh you failed math… unfortunate.

# 37 Sea Lawyer said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:32 pm

$18 million is chump change. You people obviously haven’t heard of the Defense Travel System. Over $500 million have been pumped into what is essentially a crappy Expedia clone with a claim disbursement component.

# 38 Toxic Asshead said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:42 pm

#23 – Obama is still claiming he inherited this economy. That would mean Bush inherited 9/11. Similar time periods. Unless you’re admitting this is Obama’s economy.

# 39 Jägermeister said, on July 12th, 2009 at 5:51 pm

#38 – Toxic Asshead

Bush Jr. inherited the terrorist threat. Did he do anything to ramp up security?

# 40 deowll said, on July 12th, 2009 at 8:54 pm

Hmmm, Why do I have the feeling that the information at Recovery.org is going to make the government look much worse than the information at Recovery.gov?

# 41 ECA said, on July 12th, 2009 at 9:36 pm

33.

aLL STAR?
So obama has spent more then $18 trillion dollars in 6 months??
The bills posted by obama had ADDONS PORT from WHO?? that doubled the bills??
YOU TRY, to talk 2/3 of congress and reps into DOING ANYTHING..
YOU TRY to get corps out of washington.
The ONLY way he is going to get anything done, is to bring it up to the PEOPLE of this nation and LET THEM WATCH, as there senators and reps, MESS IT ALL UP. SHOW the public what is going on..GET US PISSED OFF at our REPRESENTIVES, that we VOTED for.

# 42 curmudgeon said, on July 13th, 2009 at 12:22 am

your outrage is largely misguided and based in the stone age. check some facts first.
$18M for a big secure corporate site – and the US government is larger more complex than most businesses – is nothing.
$100M & hundreds of staff are not unheard of for the design, construction, operation & maintenance of massive sites.

# 43 Shadow Bone said, on July 13th, 2009 at 3:47 am

They could have found a random web developer to do this free of charge.

# 44 qb said, on July 13th, 2009 at 5:02 am

#42 curmudgeon

I posted something here with links but it got flagged as spam. If you compare the RFP for the site with sales literature from IBM you’ll notice that whoever put this bid together either copied and pasted IBM’s “solution architecture” or they just had IBM do it.

You’re right about the money, but it’s pathetic how poorly the bid process was run.

# 45 deowll said, on July 13th, 2009 at 5:16 am

I couldn’t get Congress to do anything.

Obama and the Dem leaders seem to be very good at getting the House and sometimes the Senate to pass huge spending bills sight unseen. They just claim its and emergency and they don’t have time for due diligence and the twits go along with it.

I think they have only manged to spend about 10% of the “stimulus” package so for and while _some+ of the projects seem like something worth doing as jobs packages go they are a sick joke.

Let’s be honest this was a giant pork package where they threw everything every Congress critter had ever requested together but hadn’t as yet been passed without any regard for the cost or the actual need if any for the project and passed it in order to show the American people their Congress critters cared and were looking out for them.

This was not a jobs program. In order to create a jobs program somebody with a brain actually has to set down and do some thinking about what actually needs to be done to increase employment and put together something that would have a chance of creating jobs.

That was not how the stimulus package was done.

# 46 deowll said, on July 13th, 2009 at 5:24 am

#42 They could have most likely gotten the same thing or better for a couple of hundred thousand but if you want to pay more you can always find somebody willing to charge more.

I’m sure they did what amounted to having the software equivalent of a hammer or pulley custom made a few hundred times in this project rather than using a stranded issue hammer.

The down side of that kind of thinking is that the custom code is more likely to have undiscovered bugs and design flaws in it.

Of course the provider may not in fact have written all new code and just charged like they did.

There is an old saying, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

# 47 Mr. Fusion said, on July 13th, 2009 at 7:26 am

#45, deowll,

I think they have only manged to spend about 10% of the “stimulus” package so …

Then you wrote,

…somebody with a brain actually has to set down and do some thinking about what actually needs to be done …

So they aren’t going fast enough but if they went any faster they wouldn’t be thinking.

Another post worthy of the Right Wing Nut of the Day Award.

# 48 Patrick said, on July 13th, 2009 at 10:02 am

Recovery.gov

Maybe it should be a website to help lawmakers to recover from porkitis…

# 49 soundwash said, on July 13th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

Transparency my arse..

That website is a huge waste of tax money.
it is a pure propaganda machine and
nothing more.

If anything, It should be called the
“Great Depression v2.0″

MAYBE if they ever decided to tell the
truth (about anything) and stopped fabricating/spinning the numbers it might
be a worthy idea.

If you want a glimpse at some real data
concerning this fictitious “recovery”,
head on over http://shadowstats.com/
for healthy dose of reality.

-after that, head over to The Market Oracle: http://marketoracle.co.uk/ and get a clue (with hard data to back it up) from people who actually work in the marketplace, about what is really going on with our economy as well as those around the globe.

Recovery.gov is only for the gullible, brainwashed masses that that love to be
spoon fed candy coated crap on a daily bases.

-whoever is in charge of hiring/allocating website funding should be tared, feathered and fired.
-s

# 50 Baktiva said, on July 13th, 2009 at 8:28 pm

Hmmm. From the same folks who are going to fix the health care system…

Good luck, suckers.

# 51 looney said, on July 13th, 2009 at 8:32 pm

Hey. I just put up MY site for $7.36 a month, using Squarespace and the Tech5 discount (TECH). Thanks, John! It’s great. Perhaps you should send an email to the the HOPECHANGE guy.

# 52 Rick Cain said, on July 13th, 2009 at 10:46 pm

I don’t see how funding such a website is a problem, considering that it disseminates government information to millions of citizens.

The US Military goes through $18 million dollars an hour.

# 53 curmudgeon said, on July 14th, 2009 at 5:51 pm

#46 – a decade ago, fortune 500 companies were already spending 9-figures for their web presences, often combined with intranet and extranet components. these days, highly-interactive self-service features are also common. yes many components are better easier and cheaper now, but interactivity is expensive to build or maintain & costly security and privacy reqs only get more and more severe. big business tools cost major moolah. always have, always will.

#44 – I believe you, but RFPs aren’t always tight, often rushed. the key to success is how well the contract is structured and managed. Let’s hope they have some geniuses doing that.

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