UPDATE 11:14 am - Thanks for folks on the NICAR listserv, some data is here.
Today was set to be a glorious day for CAR and data geeks around the country as President Obama unveils his $3.8 trillion 2011 budget. But the buzzkill has set in. While some folks may be content to pore through the thousands of pages that detail where taxpayer money is headed (or isn't), some of us are left to reverse engineer PDF pages in the hopes of extracting sortable data into deeper analysis than the headlines you'll be clobbered with all day today and tomorrow.
So where's the data, Mr. President? I like the flash map that shows me your finely chosen bullet points but how can I compare how Illinois is doing in comparison to, say, any other state?
This should be possible, as .csv or .xls files so why isn't it? Anybody out there have a bead on the data behind all this money?
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: 2011, budget, Obama, open government, transparency
None of the xls files posted now show breakdown by state, but they do allow comparative analysis between programs and the change in funding over the last few years. That's a start, no?
When you say "how Illinois is doing," aren't allocated grants usually depending applications, matching funds, etc?
Also, how Illinois is doing in terms of what, percentage of designated funds to state in relation to population size? Median income? Wouldn't it more depend on what percentage of the financial hole in each state the government is attempting to fill, and isn't it even more complicated, as in, how many jobs will this particular budget create or destroy over the next year?