2.10: Outlays
Other Information:
For a lot of folks, the big kahuna is knowing where the money goes: outlays. An outlay -- literally, the laying out of funds
-- satisfies an obligation. It's the movement of money from the U.S. Treasury to the outside world. Outlay numbers are fairly
well reported after the fact and in the aggregate. All one has to do is look at the appendices to the president's budget to
see how much money has been spent in the past. But outlay data can be much, much more detailed and timely than that. Each
outlay goes to a particular party. Each outlay is done on a particular project or program at the behest of a particular bureau
and agency. And each outlay occurs because of a particular budget authority. Right now these details about outlays are nowhere
to be found. "Surely the act of cutting a check doesn't sever all relationship between that amount of money and its corresponding
obligation/ project/program," writes a frustrated Becky Sweger from the National Priorities Project. "Surely these relationships
are intact somewhere and can be published." Plenty of people inside the government who are familiar with the movement of taxpayer
money will be inclined to say, "it's more complicated than that," and it is! But it's going to have to get quite a bit less
complicated before these processes can be called transparent. The time to de-complicate outlays is now. It's a feat of generosity
to give this area a C-. That's simply because there is an authoritative source for aggregate past outlay data. As the grades
in other areas come up, outlay data that stays the same could go down. Way down.
Stakeholder(s):
Indicator(s):
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