Citizens will soon be able to see exactly how their tax dollars are spent.

President George W. Bush on Tuesday signed S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which creates a Google-like search engine for federal spending.

“Every April, Americans sit down and fill out their tax returns, and they find out how much of their hard-earned money is coming here to Washington. Once the tax dollars arrive here, most Americans have little idea of where the money goes. And today, our government is taking steps to change that. We believe that the more we inform our American citizens, the better our government will be,” said Bush just before signing the bill.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, introduced the bill in April, but in late July the bill was stalled by a secret hold that prevented it from reaching the Senate floor.

The bill passed on a unanimous consent vote one day after Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, released his hold on the bill. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., had also placed a hold on the bill, but he had released it a few days before Stevens.

“Every American has the right to know how their government spends their money, and then to hold elected officials accountable for those decisions. I applaud my colleagues for unanimously supporting a bill that will aid the American people in that effort. This bill is a small, but significant, step toward changing the culture in Washington,” said Coburn.

The Act had bipartisan support -- both Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., -- were two early cosponsors.

The bill tasks the Office of Management and Budget with maintaining an Internet database containing information about an entity receiving federal funding, including:

• The entity’s name
• The amount of any federal funds the entity has received in each of the past 10 fiscal years 
• An itemized breakdown of each transaction, including funding agency, program source and a description of the purpose of each funding action 
• The location of the entity and primary location of performance, including the city, state, Congressional district and country 
• A unique identifier for each such entity and parent entity

Information concerning transactions involving individuals, federal employees or matters of national security would not be included.

The new law forces OMB to post information from FY 1999 onward by the end of FY 2009.