Tracking Uncle Sam's spending

If you're bored with keeping track of where the money goes in your household, try out a relatively new government Web site that tracks where your tax dollars are spent.

USASpending.gov offers an easily digestible look into where the government is spending money, with current and historical spending broken down by grants, contracts and loans. It drills further down by breaking it down into congressional districts and by contractors.

For example, I was amazed to learn that the top government contractor so far in fiscal year 2009 -- Lockheed Martin Corp. at $20.36 billion -- has received more money from the federal government than the top assistance recipient -- $18.9 billion to the Department of Health Care Services.
I guess it's not surprising the the Department of Defense is getting more money than any other area, but it's still interesting to see it in colored pie charts and graphs.

Mandated by the Federal Funding and Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, the site is an updated version of fedspending.org, a site I've used to find possible news stories.

As the data shows, it's a good time to be a defense contractor. And if nothing else, it makes keeping track of your personal expenses look easy. Very easy.