I just heard about this app called Open the Books.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...e.openthebooks
Looks to be interesting and the goal of this group is to make easily accessible every publicly listed government (including state and local) expense for increased transparency. From the interview, it sounds like this is still a work in progress. I.e. California apparently flat refused to provide them access to any of their spending records, even when a FOIA request was used, without giving any reason for the denial.
I've been tinkering around with it. Some interesting numbers for my area, but I haven't seen anything really pop out at me yet. I think part of that is it doesn't list why some group got paid or what certain contracts were for. It simply lists who got what money, and how the money was classified. It does also provide access to the salaries/wages of every federal employee. In that, I did notice it looks like letter carriers for the post office make pretty dang good money in my area.
I figured I'd throw it out here in the politics section since the app is about government spending, and see if anyone else discovers some noteworthy numbers or what they think is wasteful spending.
