WP: Obama administration publishing names federal subcontractors

[madmax]

"Obama administration begins publishing names of federal subcontractors on Web"


By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 1, 2010; 10:41 PM

Starting Wednesday, the Obama administration began publicizing the names of subcontractors - the companies that get the majority of federal contracts - along with the dollar amounts they receive.

For years, the government reported only the companies that won major, or prime, government contracts - even if those companies then hired subcontractors to do most of the job. Now taxpayers can follow more accurately where their dollars are going, tracing public money to the specific companies and communities that share in multimillion- and billion-dollar federal work.

Because of the law, the public will now learn if a huge contract won by a fledgling minority- or female-owned company helped that firm or instead flowed to a well-heeled contracting firm founded and run by a white man. The records also would reveal whether defense work that was meant to help shore up an electronics company in recession-plagued rural Pennsylvania was instead largely being done by a powerful defense giant in Arlington County.

"You really have to follow the chain to the end, or you just don't know where the dollars are going," Jennings said. "Before this, sometimes a city is listed as the primary recipient of a grant or contract. We wouldn't know prior to this that the brother-in-law of the mayor is receiving those subcontracts."


LINK: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/01/AR2010120106875.html?wpisrc=nl_fed