Keep an eye on Government: WashingtonWatch
Michael Arrington
23 comments »
WashingtonWatch is a site that breaks down the costs behind proposed U.S. federal legislation and regulation, and then asks your direct feedback in the form of comments and a simple yes/no poll. Since government tends to go crazy in an election year, this site is particularly important right now.
Take an example: Proposed legislation HR 4411 would prohibit businesses from accepting payments from gamblers who illegally bet over the Internet. Business that fail to comply would be subject to civil and criminal penalties.
The cost to taxpayers of this important legislation: $.02 per family. How do people feel about it? 76% of readers are against it, and one person commented “This is a violation of our rights. Call your senate rep and tell not to suppirt this bill. It goes way beyond just gambling online. They will have access to track everywhere you go on the net and ban you from where you can go!!!!!”
In addition to the poll and comments, the site has links to the bill as well as third party analysis, and related bills. WashintonWatch also has a RSS feed and site search, and a link to a government page where readers can write to their representative.
To see the really juicy stuff, see the greatest cost and greatest savings areas of the site.
I like WashingtonWatch because it translates Bills into understandable costs and allows direct and collaborative feedback before the Bill is voted on. These are new web ideas put to work in a tangible and useful form. I hope our elected representatives are among the readers.
Not surprisingly this is the creation of a libertarian - Jim Harper, who also works for the Cato Institute.
Since I’ve posted a bunch of negative commentes recently, I’ll chime in to say that this is a great site. Playing with it, there are a few things I’d change, but a nice start.
One of the first features I’d add is something that let’s you input your income (+ capital gains for startup folks) and it will estimate your cost for each of these bills. I suspect that the average techcrunch reader pays a whole lot more in taxes than the “Average Families” it uses.
I think this is a great site, and can definitely be a way for constituents to get involved and understand legislation and what the government is doing.
edit: second paragraph prohbit is repeated.
If he works for the Cato Institute, then he’s as about as libertarian as Newt Gingrich.
Love their analysis of the estate tax repeal - it’ll save $2025.70 per family! Yeah, if you pretend that the proceeds will be distributed to every family (and not to the wealthiest thousand families in America) and that the revenue loss won’t be offset with higher taxes on everyone else.
It’s a consevative propaganda site - nothing more.
Very nice website. Need to go over it more.
I agree with DanG. A lot of these costs vary greatly depending on your income. (Estate tax).
it’s an interesting concept, but not at all unbiased. Look one entry down from the one you cited. The estate tax repeal (H.R.
is listed as saving each family $2025. But, as the comments there point out, this is merely a division of the estimated amount saved by the number of households. Since most estates aren’t subject to any tax at all, the people inheriting them will save nothing since they would pay nothing under current law.
What would make this site truly useful (and I do like the concept - thanks for the pointer) is to have a little app on the page where you characterize yourself - male, married, income of $X, etc… Then you’d get “YOUR estimated savings/cost from thos bill would be…”
Awesome. Coming from the Cato institute, at least it won’t have a pro-big business, anti-consumer, anto-democracy bent.
Or something…
Thanks for the shout-out, Michael. I’m very pleased by your kind words.
Your commenters have smartly picked up on the fact that the current methodology doesn’t report tax or spending “incidence,” using averages instead. I have a caution about that (among several others) on WashingtonWatch.com’s “about” page.
More granular reporting is in the plans, but it’ll be tough to do (ever look at the tax code?) so that remains a horizon project. That said, dynamic economic analysis of costs and savings would tend to “spread” tax and spending incidence across the population, so averaging is not as bad as people might assume for getting a sense of what’s going on in D.C.
My day-job is at the Cato Institute, which I guess people strongly favor or disfavor. (At least we’re not boring!) Just wanted to note that WashingtonWatch.com is a side-project not formally affiliated with Cato. I burn endless spare time, like this fine Sunday night, on the site.
Nice site, but how is this Web 2.0?
Jim, well done. I am glad someone is finally exposing this important information in a way useful for citizens. Hopefully our government can learn a lesson or two
Yeah, I took one look at the estate tax entry and realized the site was BS. Minimally, it’s methodology is so deeply flawed as to be useless.
The other way it shows its bias in the way it describes everything as either a “cost” or a “savings”. Whoever set this up has to be smart enough to realize how disingenuous that is.
Hey Michael, check out
This is the Bay Area; our “elected representatives?” Feinstein, Boxer, Pelosi…
It’s doubtful that they’re readers, and they sure won’t embrace it.
WashingtonWatch is the last thing they want from the voters. Message: Democrats good, Republicans bad. Celebrating 50-year anniversay of “Republicans are only for the rich.” We feel your pain. New and improved DNC strategy: We’re … not them. Yeah, that’s the ticket!. So, just remember that, and eat your oatmeal…
Uhh…the site is a bit of a joke.
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Saves $2025.70 per family
The Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act of 2005
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Yea, except 95% + of American families aren’t even affected by the Estate Tax. So it saves them nothing.
In my opinion, this is a bit of a Cream Puff review by Mike. The data should have been analyzed before saying how great the site is.
I see Jim Harper has joined the comments. Jim, maybe you can help me find some data on the site.
- How much would be saved by families by ending subsidies for the Oil and Mining Industries
- How much would be saved by ending corporate welfare.
Thanks.
Hi Jason. Sorry to say, I don’t collect aggregate data on broad issues like corporate welfare. But the Department of Defense Appropriations bill, which I featured in this morning’s WashingtonWatch.com Digest (e-mail list), would be an awfully good place to find some . . . .
There are so many different dimensions to government information that are still obscure. WashingtonWatch.com aims to change that, but it will definitely take time.
I agree with the import of your question - a LOT would be saved by families if subsidies and corporate welfare were ended.
Now, as to whether Mike did a “Cream Puff review.” You can criticize me. You can criticize WashingtonWatch.com. You can criticize the methodology. But criticizing Mike is going too far!
Seriously, a careful discussion of the methodology in special cases like the estate tax is over at: http://www.seancoon.org/2006/08/death_tax_20.html
I’d be delighted to learn of any methodology for calculating costs and savings that is a) better and b) scalable.
Thanks for your inquiries, Jason, and thanks again Michael for pointing your readers to WashingtonWatch.com.
What is this fullofcrap 2.0
The information on this site means nothing they are pulling it out of there biased butts. Just because the information looks pretty doesn’t mean its true.