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“Open the Books is doing the work I envisioned… putting sunlight through a magnifying glass.” U.S. Senator Tom Coburn
March, 2014 Thanks to your support, 2014 has been a spectacular year. Here are some of the highlights… Can a pair of union lobbyists receive $1 Million teacher pensions after substitute teaching for One Day DESPITE a state law designed to stop them? Read more at Forbes. Our columns at Forbes online produced 180,000 views-click here Are “house accounts” issued at an Illinois Jr. College whereby tens of thousands of dollars in dinners, gifts, parties, hotels, and alcohol flowed to trustees, the president and senior managers? Read more at Huffington Post
America’s Leading Transparency Portal:
1.1 billion lines of government spending added at Open The Books- a triple in record collection. At 1.6 billion lines total, it’s the largest private repository of government spending records in the world: disclosed federal spending since 2000, 48/50 state checkbooks, and data on 50,000 local units of government across America.Special thanks to our Director of Information Technology Craig Mijares 2015 Goal: Acquire and post 3 billion total lines of spending. Help us here with a tax-deductible gift.Website traffic quadrupled in 2014: Unique users at OpenTheBooks.com quadrupled this year. In June alone, during the VA Scandal, over 378,000 citizens generated 1.3 million queries regarding VA salaries/bonuses. Our work was cited in USA Today, The FOX News Channel, Investor’s Business Daily, by John Stossel, Rush Limbaugh, Washington Examiner, and local affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox across the country. 2015 Goal: Quadruple Website Traffic again. Help us here with a tax-deductible gift. Federal Transfer™ Oversight Reports: Fortune 100 Contracts & Subsidies- In March, Stephen Moore at Investor’s Business Daily wrote a front page column, Welfare Reform Starts with the Fortune 100. David Stockman, Reagan’s former budget director wrote, Stop Welfare at the Top. Bill Maher at HBO agreed with Moore and Stockman. Veteran’s Administration Salaries & Bonuses- In May, Emily Boyd Walker at FOX News wrote Staff at Phoenix VA Pocketed Hefty Salaries and Bonuses based on our data and research. Open The Books became the defacto repository of VA data during the scandal. U.S. Senator Tom Coburn stated, “I’m proud of the work ordinary citizens and groups like Open the Books are doing to hold the VA accountable.”
Small Business Administration Loan Abuse- In November, Kelly Riddle at The Washington Times and Stephen Moore at Investor’s Business Daily covered our ground-breaking research. The SBA funded billions in loans to the Wealthy Lifestyle including $160 million to private, members-only country clubs, Rolex, Lamborghini, and $9.2 billion to private equity firms. 2015 Goal: continue our robust federal oversight reporting. Help us here with a tax-deductible gift. Our Investigation- An IL Jr College Gone Wild College of DuPage: With the help of Trustee Kathy Hamilton, we were able to freeze property taxes, expose $100 million in hidden spending, stop a corrupted $20 million state grant, and freeze student tuition during the first seven months of investigation. Our work was profiled in Forbes, Huffington Post, Washington Times, Chicago Tribune, and Daily Herald. KEY SPEECHES AND TELEVISION World Taxpayer’s Conference, Transparency & Accountability Vancouver, Canada John Stossel Special- Government Overlords, FOX Business
Where’s the VA Accountability? and VA Salary & Bonus Study The Independents, Where’s the Pork Special?, FOX Business The New York Meeting, Holding the VA Accountable, The Charleston Meeting, Open The Books, Charleston, SC With the national debt nearly $17 trillion, you cannot cut wasteful spending– if you cannot simply see it.
Happy New Year! ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI Founder, OpenTheBooks.com Matthew Tyrmand
Deputy Director P.S. Your help is needed today. We appreciate your help.
Please make a tax deductible gift of $25, $50, $100, $250 or $500 today.
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