Archive for the 'Congressional Reference' Category
Search video archives of the Congressional Record. Metavid, a tool created by Michael Dale and Abram Stern of UC Santa Cruz’s new Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) graduate program, uses public domain video feed to create video archives. The tool is fully indexed so that users can listen to keywords in context. It is also searchable by speaker.
“American taxpayers spend over $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, a “think tank” that provides reports to members of Congress on a variety of topics relevant to current political events. Yet, these reports are not made available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. A project of the Center for Democracy & Technology through the cooperation of several organizations and collectors of CRS Reports, Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to provide public access to all CRS Reports.”
The Department of the Treasury has revealed a 212 page document entitled, Blueprint for Financial Regulatory Reform plan to streamline a host of regulations that are partially “blamed” for allowing the U.S. mortgage crisis to balloon into a full-blown economic threat. Under the proposals, the current patchwork of as many as seven federal regulators would be consolidated under three agencies: the U.S. Federal Reserve, a newly created financial regulator and a third agency for consumer protection and business practices.
To track Government spending be sure to consult FedSpending.org. The site allows users to Track recepients of federal grants and contracts, including where the money is being spent and whether or not it was competitively bid.
The Congressional Budget Office baseline budget projections run for 10 years in its budget reports. The Budget and Economic Outlook includes separate chapters on the economic outlook, outlays, and receipts. The data and projections cover FY2007 through FY2018. In addition to chapters on the budget and economic outlook, this publication includes a glossary and historical budget data.
OpenCongress is a user friendly alternative Thomas, the legislative database from the Library of Congress. The site has more features than Thomas including an area to comment on bills and well as a “Congress Gossip Blog, ” a good place to get the scoop on the wheelings and dealings of Congress.
For a detailed independent analysis of the current budget outlook, see Alan Auerbach, Jason Furman, and William Gale, “Still Crazy After All These Years: Understanding the Budget Outlook,” working paper, April 27, 2007, available from the University of California, Berkeley. The paper covers recent fiscal outcomes and assesses future fiscal prospects.
The Washington Affairs Office of the American Association of Law Libraries is has published a new blog , highlighting bills they are tracking in Congress, news and resources. Topics covered include access to government information, digital authentication, copyright, and open government issues.
From the Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs, this website includes educational articles, videos, slide shows and brochures on U.S. government, politics and culture. The information is intended for international audiences and is available in English, Spanish, Russian, French, Chinese, Arabic and Persian. The “U.S. Politics” and “U.S. Government” sections can be especially useful for student presentations.