E-Government projects under fire

Transparency was a big campaign pledge by the Obama administration. Instead of the behind-closed-doors approach of the Bush era, they said, Team Obama would make a lot of government documentation readily available online so the American people could see what was going on and get bored to death my arcane government minutiae (this is what democracy looks like! Actually!)

But those projects might be on thin ice in the era of governmental budget slashing, says Politico. The E-Government fund supports the administration’s cloud computing initiative, data center consolidation, and transparency sites like Data.gov, Performance.gov, and USAspending.gov. House and Senate appropriations committee are reportedly looking to eliminate the project altogether. The administration is trying to stop them, arguing that they only cost a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the budget.