About Grading the Government
In January 2009, President Barack Obama sent a memorandum to the heads of Executive Branch agencies with the goal of establishing what he has repeatedly called, “the most transparent Administration in history.”
Now, more than four years after that memo was published in the federal register, Cause of Action set out to determine whether the President has been able to fulfill his goals for transparency in government, specifically in the FOIA process, or if he has fallen short of the intended outcome.
Report
Grading the Government is an initial look into the ability of the Federal Government to provide transparency into their many dealings. Cause of Action decided that we would look to our own FOIA experiences in an effort to gauge the overall health of transparency within the Federal Government. In total, 113 offices received FOIA requests for our investigation into promotional item spending. In an age where government spending continues to grow, where new regulations are added every year, and where ethics in government are continually questioned, citizens should be entitled to a level of transparency that grows at the same rate.
