Building on the DATA Act’s Momentum

The federal government spent more than $3.8 trillion in 2016. And we are about to know how it was used, thanks to the Data Accountability and Transparency Act. The DATA Act requires that disjointed processes, reporting cadences, and data sets are standardized, connected and published. But the real breakthroughs will only come if people like you dig in and analyze this treasure trove of information. That’s why we’re taking action.

We want to make President Thomas Jefferson proud. More than two centuries ago, he told Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin that “we might hope to see the finances of the union as clear and intelligible as a merchant’s books, so that every man of any mind in the union should be able to comprehend them, to investigate abuses and, consequently, to control them.”

That 215-year-old vision is coming to life through new APIs and a soon-to-be launched new version of USASpending.gov.

The point isn’t just to provide transparency for the sake of transparency. It’s to open up the data to all kinds of analysis and applications – for students, journalists, budget wonks, and more. The DATA Act numbers expose the entire spending lifecycle, from appropriations to when and how the money is actually spent. You can hear more from leaders across the industry and government discuss the future of open data in our on-demand webcast.

The data transparency continues to gain momentum because of policy, the advance of technology, and a focus on data standardization and normalization. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently unveiled USAFacts.org.  It offers historical data on all kinds of state, local, and federal trends. That both Steve Ballmer’s effort and the DATA Act rollout are happening in parallel is great—collectively, we’re taking big steps forward in making data useful and in our understanding of the impact government data can have.  

Once you have access to new data, it’s all about how you use it. With the right data science tools and techniques, the government can do more to better allocate resources and solve problems more strategically.

The government is a publicly held trust and we are the shareholders, so we’re asking you to use these new data assets. Without curiosity and use, we won’t see the intended impact and value. We need people who are inspired enough to get in there and dig.

At Booz Allen, we believe strongly in working together on unlocking the power and value of data and that’s why we'll continue to work to inspire creative analysis and innovation from these new spending data sets. And we’ll be doing it in D.C. in our Innovation Center—just steps from the White House and the Treasury Department, where Jefferson’s old friend Treasury Secretary Gallatin’s statue stands watch right inside the gates.