GAO: Federal government's online spending portal hampered by inconsistencies

A new report from the Government Accountability Office casts doubt on the effectiveness of the federal government's online spending portal, USAspending.gov.

The site -- commissioned in 2006 to track federal agencies' contracts, loans, grants and other financial awards -- remains hampered by reporting mistakes, data inconsistencies and a handful of other errors and missed benchmarks, the GAO found. Investigators praised the project and signaled its administrators were working to address some of the GAO's criticisms, including the website's yet-unfinished section on federal subcontracts and still-unwritten procedures to handle agencies that fail to share their spending figures. But the GAO still stressed the site's overall ability to promote transparency and openness "will be limited in providing the public with a view into the details of federal spending" for as long as the agency's concerns remain unaddressed.