If you have solid tips, news or documents on potential ethical violations or abuses of power, we want to know. Send us your suggestions. 
Unfortunately I believe that we are limited in what we can focus on. I think that if we proceed with the partisan sideshow of prosecuting Bush admin. officials, healthcare will get lost in the brouhaha.
The Washington Post's permanent investigative unit was set up in 1982 under Bob Woodward.
Follow the Money
The federal government has never made it easy for the public to "follow the money" that flows from Washington through contracts and grants. It took a nonprofit, OMB Watch, to make that information easily available on a website, which the group has just expanded and updated with more data. The website, www.fedspending.org, is also being used as a model for a new official government site.
The site allows anyone to search for grant and contract spending by company, city, agency or industry. "We were frustrated by how hard it was to find out about government spending," said Gary Bass, the group's executive director. "We were being told we couldn't do this - it would cost millions of dollars." After Hurricane Katrina highlighted the need to hold government contractors accountable, OMB Watch received a three-year grant from the Sunlight Foundation and launched the site six months later.
Congress, also frustrated by the difficulty of monitoring government spending, passed a 2006 law requiring the federal government to make similar information easily available through the Office of Management and Budget, which the agency expects will be posted online by Jan 1.
-- Sarah Cohen, Washington Post Database Editor
By The Editors |
December 5, 2007; 4:37 PM ET
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Posted by: airedale | December 7, 2007 1:37 AM
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I guess you didn't notice but both the OMB Watch and Sunlight Foundation have pretty strong ties to the left of center in American politics. All it took is a look at their leadership, board of directors and which issues and the way the address them on their website to notice the tilt. To come to a full conclusion would take a little more study but I doubt the results would change. Aren't there any similar groups that slant toward the right like these do to the left?