Why Did Sen. Stevens Place A Hold On The Transparency Bill?
Aaron Saunders, spokesperson for Stevens, said Coburn was informed two weeks ago that his boss had concerns about the bill. Namely, Stevens is concerned that the bill would create more bureaucracy. He wants to see a cost-benefit analysis.Saunders said there was nothing secret about what Stevens did.
“Senator Stevens has always preferred to handle this at the staff level or member to member,” Saunders said. “He doesn’t like running to the blogosphere or the media.”
“Our reticence in getting out there is that Stevens doesn’t want to be in the media attacking Coburn,” Saunders said. “He has never addressed legislative concerns in the media. It is just not the way the senator has ever operated.”
Stevens' complaint about bureaucracy is absurd. The fact is that most of the data is already amalgamated by the Census Bureau. (See here and here.) All Coburn and Obama's bill would do is to make the interface more user-friendly and provide more specifics.
I hope that by publicizing these two resources I won't be inspiring Stevens to defund them.