Recently our president signed a bill called The Federal Funding Accountability And Transparency Act Of 2006. The bill will create a searchable database allowing anyone to easily perform searches for how tax dollars are spent.
The bill is a great idea and I would love to see the same principals of openness take hold at the state and local levels as well. What makes the bill interesting is that it puts an emphasis on accountability and community.
The success of the program is to be determined but the spark is there that the government can self-improve by allowing it's citizens to critique, participate and feedback into the process.
Take this a step further, as I suspect someone will, and link such a database with a Digg-style voting system. This will be an interesting barometer of how citizens actually want to see their tax dollars spent.