A Holiday Present for the Budget Wonk Who Has Everything
Who wants to lug around a 1,400-page book?
It might make a great arm workout, but now there’s an alternative to toting around the book format of the appendix version of the budget of the U.S. government for fiscal 2011.
Thanks to a new contract between the Government Printing Office and Google Books, the extended appendix version of federal budget — the largest of the five books comprising the budget — is available for download in e-book format from Google’s Web-based electronic bookstore for $9.99. (The PDF version is free.)
Public Printer Robert Tapella told Roll Call that more GPO documents will follow the budget to Google’s e-bookstore, which officially launched Monday.
The document might make the perfect Christmas gift for federal spending watchdogs who hawkishly follow every tax penny. They can discover how much is spent on things such as the Federal Railroad Administration, flood control, unemployment insurance benefits and operations for federal agencies — all from their personal laptops and smartphones at the click of a button.
Authored by the Office of Management and Budget, the appendix includes for each agency “the proposed text of appropriations language, budget schedules for each account, new legislative proposals, and explanations of the work to be performed and the funds needed, and proposed general provisions applicable to the appropriations of entire agencies or group of agencies,” as described online.