NYC OTB, bankrupt
Suffolk OTB, in bankruptcy
Nassau OTB employees saddled with Teamsters Local 707 whose pension plan is in critical status and whose Business Agent is Barry Yomtov former President of Teamsters Local 707 which represented NYC OTB Managers and Nassau OTB employees\
NY Public Authorities
CUNY Research Foundation
NYC School Construction Authority
SUNY Research Foundation
Track Government Spending With Your Phone
A new app allows taxpayers to search spending by ZIP code.
more in Opinion
»
By ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI
With the United States drowning in runaway spending and debt now nearing $17 trillion, Americans might like to know where Uncle Sam is stashing their cash. Now they can. As long as you have the Web or a smartphone, you can track federal spending down to your own neighborhood. Be prepared, though, because the results aren't pretty.I've lived in Illinois since I was born, and I've watched as politicians from both parties wasted taxpayer money and profited from public largess. In 2010, I even ran for governor in the Republican primary on a platform of "Every dime, online, in real time." I lost—but I didn't give up on my goal.
I started a nonprofit focused on government transparency, and this March we released our transparency app, Open the Books. It's free on Apple and Droid platforms and can be accessed on the Web at www.openthebooks.com. The app gives every taxpayer access to 12 years of federal spending.
Corbis
Here are just three tidbits I found out using the new app:
• The brother of a former state director of agriculture under former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has received nine federally guaranteed loans totaling $1.67 million since 2006. He has also received hundreds of thousands in direct payments and subsidies from the federal government, all based on his ownership of a single hog farm in Teutopolis, Ill.
• In Bradley, a small town 60 miles south of Chicago, a beauty school with 105 students and based in a shopping mall charges $20,000 for tuition and supplies. Yet the school has received over $8.2 million in federal Pell grants and federal student loans. Thanks to the taxpayer subsidy, the college of cosmetology has tuition that exceeds tuition payments at some Big Ten universities.
• In my upscale suburb of Hinsdale—where the average home sells for nearly $900,000 and the median household income is over $150,000 per year—a nonprofit called Community House received a million-dollar grant for children's programming. In addition, taxpayers guaranteed a low-interest government loan for $1.5 million to the local Lamborghini dealership. That's spreading the wealth to the wealthy.
If you download the app and put in your ZIP Code, what "essential" spending will you find in your town and state? With 12 years of contracts, farm subsidies, grants, loans, insurance and direct payments, it's nearly certain you'll find some local business, citizen or organization receiving a piece of the federal pie.
As you use the app to review the federal checkbook, keep Mr. Coburn's recent question to taxpayers in mind: Is the spending in the national interest, or is it for a special interest? After all, it's your money.
Mr. Andrzejewski is an entrepreneur and founder of the nonprofit For the Good of Illinois.
A version of this article appeared May 29,
2013, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with
the headline: Track Government Spending With Your Phone.
No comments:
Post a Comment