(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today hailed House passage the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, a bill to increase the availability, accuracy, and usefulness on on-line information regarding Federal spending.  That bill will require each government program to disclose agency expenditures which enables taxpayers and policy makers to track Federal spending more efficiently.  The Senate passed the DATA Act earlier this month.  The bill will now go to the president for his signature. 

“The passage of this bill is important precisely because the bureaucrats in Washington don’t want it and have fought it every step of the way.  In many cases, the federal government doesn’t even know what they’re doing with their resources and now they will have to know in order to comply with this law.  I hope President Obama will sign this bill into law as soon as possible and force the federal government to provide a full and transparent accounting of their use of taxpayer funds,” Dr. Coburn said.

This bill will establish Government-wide data standards for financial data and provide consistent, reliable, and searchable spending data that is displayed accurately for taxpayers and policy makers on USASpending.gov.  By making government spending information easily accessible, this legislation will increase oversight to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse while enabling individuals to more easily access and understand how Federal tax dollars are being spent.

The Senate bill was cosponsored by Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Tom Carper (D-DE), Chris Coons (D-DE), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Ron Johnson (R-WI), John McCain (R-AZ), Patty Murray (D-WA), Rob Portman (R-OH), Mark Warner (D-VA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

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