Welcome, I'm Anastasia Glova bringing you the Cato Daily Podcast.

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Recently proposed legislation by Senator Tom Coburn aims to curb

federal spending by creating a comprehensive internet database to help

citizens keep an eye on pork. In addition, several online databases already help track

spending on federal subsidies and contracts. Director of Tax Policy

Studies, Chris Edwards, discusses the tools available to citizens.

How much does the federal government hand discusses the tools available to citizens.

How much does the federal government hand out in subsidies and contracts each year?

Well, every year out of the $2.7 trillion federal budget, there's about $500 billion of contracts at the federal government issues for defense equipment

and all kinds of other goods and services.

It also gives away about $500 billion every year to individuals and businesses and state and local

governments in what are called grants and aid or payments for artists for small businesses and other activities.

Who receives all these federal payments?

Well, it's really, it's state and local governments receive about 450 billion dollars a year from the federal

government. Businesses receive billions of dollars in grants and loans and individuals,

again artists and other sorts of individuals receive millions of dollars of

grants from the federal government each year. Are there any resources available

to citizens to track this federal spending? Well, Senator Tom Cobran has an idea to create a big database that would track all the recipients

of federal payments and subsidies and aid, but there's already some resources available to taxpayers if they want to look

into who receives their federal taxpayer dollars.

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