Recovery.gov To Get $18 Million Redesign 434
barbarai notes a report by ABC News's Rick Klein: "For those concerned about stimulus spending, the General Services Administration sends word tonight that $18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site. "Recovery.gov 2.0 will use innovative and interactive technologies to help taxpayers see where their dollars are being spent," James A. Williams, commissioner of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, says in a press release announcing the contract awarded to Maryland-based Smartronix Inc. according to the ABC news blog."
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
$18 million to redesign a website? WTF are they doing with it?
From TFA, they're going to spend $9.5 million over the next 6 months or so. Assuming $75k salaries for the web developers/DBAs/etc (generous), they'd be hiring 250 people to design a website.
And Americans wonder why they have such a big deficit.
WTF? We're doomed (Score:4, Insightful)
And I was so hopeful this administration wasn't going to be full of idiots like the last one was. Jesus, I could probably code their whole damned site in a day, I'm sure I could do it in a week (and it would be standards-compliant and work on your phone, too). Can I get millions?
I'm starting to understand the teabaggers.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:5, Insightful)
And the same company gave tens of thousands of dollars to the House majority leader when the House was controlled by Republicans.
This is not a partisan issue, I hope you weren't trying to make it into one. Because that would dodge the core issue.
This is just another example of a fundamental flaw in how campaign finance works in the US, and the current party in power shares the culpability with the prior party in power.
Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
The Definition of "Design" (Score:4, Insightful)
Those of us who are website developers will recognize the misuse of "design" committed by ABC News here. To a layperson, "design" means "make" when it comes to websites. They're not spending $18M to redesign the website (presumably), but presumably on a total overhaul of the thing.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think you have to hire web developers in the city where you live, you don't understand the web.
Re:WTF? We're doomed (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is it that in a nation where we swing between two parties in power every decade or so that people really think that one has that much on the ball and the other is full of gimps and morons? The fact is that they're roughly the same entity and every couple voting cycles people get sick of hearing what one has to say and goes to the other to hear the same thing they were hearing from them the last time they got voted out of office. The difference is that most voters have an easier time remembering Terry Bradshaw's pass completion percentage from the 1975 season than the hollow promises made to them by politicians in the same time frame.
We will not see a truely progressive politician make it to the presidency until we get a viable third party. And even then it's a long shot.
Re:Finally we get our bailout (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but I'm going to be a little pissed off at a web site that cost eighteen million dollars and doesn't have blackjack and hookers (which I'm presuming is the case).
It doesn't have blackjack and hookers, but it will have their receipts.
Counterexample (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Definition of "Design" (Score:3, Insightful)
At $100,000 per employee, you could hire 10 developers, buy all the best equipment and development tools and spend 10 years on the project and still have money left over.
Remember, this is the kind of process they would bring to health care.
Re:The Definition of "Design" (Score:3, Insightful)
At $100,000 per employee, you could hire 10 developers, buy all the best equipment and development tools and spend 10 years on the project and still have money left over.
Remember, this is the kind of process they would bring to health care.
Someone in the government makes a bad IT contracting decision and that somehow reflects on how a health system will be run? Whatever you're smoking I want some.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure you could... to a company in Oklahoma... Like another gov't agency does... FAA/DOT anyone?
well... (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess is that its not 18 million on just developing the site. To get that high of a numer they are probably redoing their entire infrastructure. You're talking licensing which in a corporate envioronment can hit 10 million easy.
Then you're also talking paying developers to create custom applications, build databases, etc..
If you've ever worked in a corporate environment dropping 10 million on an infrastructure is nothing. Not saying its right or ok, just saying most people probably have no idea the cost of things.
First pass (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget: this is only the first pass. I'm sure there will be overruns, missed deadlines, re-designs, etc. This $18 mil is just the start.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
Cut your number of people in 1/2. The total cost of employing someone (benefits, facilities, management, HR, ...) is about 2X his or her salary.
OTH mabey we should look at this as stimulus spending for programmers.
Re:well... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a valid point, and I'd be interested to hear from Slashdotters with experience on what they think it would take to start from Ground Zero to produce a "production quality" (including IA/North Korea DDOS attack-proof) infrastructure & content, including hosting facility costs for, let's say, 5 years.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the sort of person who requires a bribe in exchange for awarding a contract probably doesn't care who has a foot in the door, they care only about the bribe.
Duke Cunningham [talkingpointsmemo.com] made lists and, although there were some advantages of scale in his bribe menu, there were no 'foot in the door' clauses.
Read the RFP (Score:5, Insightful)
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=9745fb34e48a36a32b4fc589c3e371cb&tab=core&_cview=1&cck=1&au=&ck=
The Federal Business Opportunities website listed this opportunity a few weeks ago (could've been up longer than that, who knows).
It's not "just a website". It's a bit of a cluster**** in terms of number of data sources, what they expect to do with the data, etc.
I've done my time (never again!) with sorting through data from various data sources and while the actual programming part is *usually* not that difficult (assuming the data is not too badly malformed), but there are so many problems with processes, dealing with crap data, exceptions, etc. that if I were bidding for this work, I'd inflate my estimates quite a bit, too.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:5, Insightful)
> This is not a partisan issue, I hope you weren't trying to make it into one.
Agreed. It is a general problem.
> This is just another example of a fundamental flaw in how campaign finance works in the US,
Here is where we part company. It has exactly zero with campaign finance. You are upset about a symptom of the problem. The problem is the size and scope of government. A Congresscritter makes a lot more than an average slob but compare the 535 members of the legislative branch with the 500 leaders of the 'corporate branch' (CEOs of the Fortune 500) of our society and ponder. But at those levels it is about POWER as much as MONEY. Which group has more power? Now you begin to understand why a seat that pays so little is worth spending several million every two years to keep. And why the corporations will invest so much into politicians.
When the corporations very survival depends on the whims of political class it would be stupid not to invest as much time and energy into controlling that factor as they spend on any other aspect of success with so much potential to affect the bottom line. Take the example everyone here loves to hate, MSFT. Until the government took such an intense interest in their operations their Washington DC office was vestigial, now it is a major presence. Just like every other major corporation, they either want to deflect the government's gaze or get their snout into the public treasury.
And it will be ever thus until we put the government back into it's proper place. Make the government small enough that a House seat isn't worth millions and the money will go away. Nothing else will work, no law will stop clever people who have so much at stake. At least no law that leaves the 1st Amendment intact and do we really want to go there?
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Headline's good for a laugh, but it's a bit of a troll.
Re:Finally we get our bailout (Score:4, Insightful)
Started to make a joke and decided not to. This isn't funny.
My guess is that on slashdot a really large percentage of the readers are capable of producing a website. A smaller percentage could make a good website and a really small percentage could make a website that will be every bit as good as the upcoming $18 million website from the govt 2.0.
Being good slashdotters, many of them would know of the concept of FOSS.
So the existence of FOSS means that it is possible to achieve this website for the cost of 1) servers, 2) bandwidth, 3) electricity, 4) infrastructure (building, etc), and 5) people to make/run/maintain the site.
Let's say we just take about $1 million and buy a really nice building somewhere. That may not get you much in DC, but all we need is a connection to the internet, right? I seem to heard something in the news recently about real estate and how some people are having trouble selling theirs. Maybe for $1 million dollars we could pick up a really nice building in the mid-west somewhere?
That leaves us $17 million to work with.
If we take the Google approach of buying cheap PC grade hardware and making a big distributed system, we could build a pretty nice farm for another $1 million. Right? Now we are down to $16 million.
If we run more than $100,000 a year for combined bandwidth and electricity, I'd be kind of surprised, so we're good for ten years on $1 million. That leaves $15 million.
That leaves people. So we have $15 million dollars to hire people to make and run a website. Let's spread that over ten years as well. That gives us $1.5 million per year. We'll pay every single one of them $100,000 a year. That means we can have 15 people. Realistically we only need the bulk of those people during the initial redesign, but why quibble? It's only money, right?
So laying it out that way, wouldn't you agree that we should be seeing one heck of a great website? Innovative and interactive indeed!
OMG! Just RTFA! The $18 million tag is not for 10 years, but only 5 years. Wow.
As for your sense of rage, that's up to you. You could feel rage that the government is spending more money for this than is necessary. You could equally feel a sense of irony that they are spending a large sum of money on a site meant to show you how well they are managing your money and not spending it frivolously.
How you react to the story is really up to you.
These guys are worth $18 million?????? (Score:1, Insightful)
Somebody take a look at the source for the Smartronix careers page and tell me why we're giving these people $18 million for anything. They use fucking tables for layout for God's sake! http://www.smartronix.com/CAREERS/CurrentOpenings/tabid/78/Default.aspx
Re:cash4cronies (Score:2, Insightful)
Only persons who can vote should be allowed to donate to campaigns. Can corporations vote? Nope - so no donations from them.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:3, Insightful)
That is good information, but my question was more as to the philosophical/economic/sociological reasons why it makes sense to grant them "personhood". What kind of bad stuff do people expect to happen if we say corporations are not "people", and do not have the right to make political contributions.
I mean, besides the politicians who expect their money to go away.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:5, Insightful)
I've a question: how come it's always obviously graft when Republicans do it, but it's a sign that the system is flawed when Democrats do it?
Why can't it be simple vote-buying no matter who does it? And why hasn't tar-and-feathering made a comeback yet?
Re:cash4cronies (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, he probably with me and is shocked because no one is bitching about the administration, no bid contracts, millions of dollars being spent and payoffs to those responsible for the contract.
I guess maybe if haliburton or cheney was a name in the story, everyone would be pissed.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:3, Insightful)
neither can ex-cons and felons in most states. Should they be able to donate to the legalize MJ candidates or donate to the candidate that is claiming to build new parks and clean up the environment?
Ability to vote does not determine the impact of the candidates running for office. Donating, even if it is labor or vocalized support should not be removed from anyone who is subject to the political processes, laws, and environment under each, even if they aren't allowed to vote themselves.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep in mind that, at the moment, corporations actually have less ability to directly contribute to a campaign than unions do. With a corporation, only people within the corporation may individually contribute (usually CEOs and the like). Unions, which are also a collective body of individuals, may contribute to campaigns directly. Of course, this also happens to include public sector unions - whether you think that's a good idea or a bad idea probably depends on your perspective, your thoughts on how much (or little) of a conflict of interest it might be for public sector unions to attempt to influence hiring and wage policies through the election process, and your general political inclination.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't buy politicians, you subscribe to them.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree we part ways there.
While there is a lot of cruft in government, I believe there is a need for the government to operate in areas where the public sector will not.
You see the root problem as the scope of the government. I see the root problem as the quality of the government's output.
I do not believe we should throw out the baby with the bathwater. Your ideal of the putting the government "back into it's proper place" would do just that. You, as a someone well read in history and economics, should know that 'small government' of the past led to enormous abuses of capital that resulted in far less than optimal outcomes for the country as a whole, for the common people, and for all but a select few of the elite. What is needed is a less wasteful government, not necessarily a smaller government.
We'll never agree on this point, I understand. But the government serves a lot of necessary roles, and we must be careful to ensure that we do not ignore these in a quest for small government.
And regarding the monetary value of holding office -- you're missing an entire aspect (though you alluded to it) that also results in suboptimal politics. Money is one motivator for those seeking higher office, but other motivations pose similar problems. People who seek office for prestige, for example. As long as we have elected offices of any kind, they will be a route to power (and thus profit) in the private sector due to the prestige that comes with being elected. So reducing the scope of government does not solve the problem, although it would help with that problem.
Put it in perspective. (Score:5, Insightful)
I get tired of these stories. You could claim it's a waste of money to spend 18 million for setting up a transparency website and then running it for a few years. But put these stories into perspective by visiting DefenseLink every day to view how much of your tax dollars are being "invested."
http://www.defenselink.mil/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=4067 [defenselink.mil]
Yesterday alone we awarded over 120 million dollars. The day before that we awarded over 500 million dollars in contracts - I got too disgusted to continue adding the numbers.
So, would I rather not waste 18 million dollars? Sure. But I'd rather spend it on something constructive than destructive. A website about government spending is way more valuable to me than another novel way to hunt and kill humans.
Re:Finally we get our bailout (Score:4, Insightful)
Did it not occur to you that the lion's share of the budget is most likely for *collecting and assembling the information*? There are a huge number of entities involved here, including all 50 states and thousands of individual counties, each with their own data handing mechanisms.
Re:WTF? We're doomed (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all of us want a "progressive politician"--I don't want a politician making my own life decisions and choices for me, whether it's a corrupt one or one that honestly believes that nonsense.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:3, Insightful)
Other countries don't have our First Amendment rights.
I have the right to stand on a street corner and say, "hey, you should vote for Al Franken. What a swell guy!" *
I also have the right to pitch in with several friends and buy a billboard which says: "Al is swell! Vote for him!"
I furthermore have the right to pitch in with A LOT of people and buy 30 seconds on TV to say "Everybody in their right mind should vote for Al Franken."
I can even put together a "Tell People To Vote For Al" club, and ask other people who want to help me spread the word to send me money.
The problem with Campaign Finance Reform is, if it's "during the election cycle", I'm not allowed to do any of that stuff without falling under the strictly-regulated umbrella of Al Franken's campaign budget.
But Rupert Murdoch can spend 30 minutes a night, every night, on FOX News telling everybody how wonderful Norm Coleman is ** and how great it would be if we all voted for him. Likewise, he can buy the Minneapolis Star Tribune away from Gannet and run daily front-page articles crowing about Norm Coleman's legislative accomplishments and/or Al Franken scandals.
Campaign Finance laws which restrict, in any way, spending money on expressing an opinion about a sitting Senator or his opponent, are violations of our right to political speech, and furthermore hands the news media a monopoly on free expression
* This is a hypothetical example. Al Franken is not a swell guy. He's a complete choad.
** Norm Coleman - Also a complete choad.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:5, Insightful)
Only persons who can vote should be allowed to donate to campaigns. Can corporations vote? Nope - so no donations from them.
Then we ought not to tax corporations either. No taxation without representation!
Re:cash4cronies (Score:3, Insightful)
That's fascinating, but a corporation is still a legal entity that is not entitled to all the protections of the law in the same way that a person is.
"Kinda like a person" is, by definition, not a person. It's a convenient shorthand that gives people (real people, not corporation-people) the wrong impression. So stop it.
Re:well... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's an informational site, does not need marketing or any significant SEO per se, just cross-links from other
Typically a rough estimate is about 10 man-hours per database field for dynamic sites start to finish. At $100/man-hour using that metric it would indicate there are 18,000 fields in the database that drives the site - utterly ridiculous. More likely there are 180 db fields and taxpayers are paying $10,000/man hour.
Re:cash4cronies (Score:3, Insightful)
When a Republican changes his mind, he's a liar.
When a Democrat changes his mind, he's "seen the light" - or "gained a new awareness of the issues".
When a Republican raises taxes, he's a heartless bastard.
When a Democrat raises taxes, he's "taking necessary steps in a troubled time to keep the budget balanced".
Mass-media linguistic gymnastics, ain't it grand?