Thursday, February 21, 2008

Shaking the piggy-bank

A week ago I noted W's latest "if we don't tell them they'll never know" ploy, shutting down an award-winning Commerce Dept web portal for "budgetary reasons."

Today, Think Progress reports that Commerce has yielded to public outcry, including a letter from Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), and will keep the site up.

The site, EconomicIndicators.gov, provides handy links to a variety of economic data from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It also provides subscription options for getting email updates when new data become available.

I can't say I've ever used the portal, but shutting it down for budgetary reasons when we're spending $600Bn on Defense seems like a questionable rationale.

Who knows, maybe I'll start visiting the site regularly!

Moral of the story: you can make a difference. The original decision to shut down the portal was reversed based on popular outrage.

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