Like me, you may have missed this earlier this month. The Internet has been a buzz with shock and disblief at the announcement that recovery.gov will be redesigned at the unbelieveable price tag of 9.5 million dollars. The contact was awarded to Smartronix and includes services and development that will total 18 million dollars over the next five years. This is a price that many in the web design community have scoffed at. Today I came across this video from ReasonTV about recovery.org developed by a private company, Onvia that gives government agencies, contractors, and taxpayers access to a huge amount of data related to the recovery stimulus package. I wish I could say that I am surprised by the huge waste of taxpayer money going into a project like recovery.gov but it is something we will be seeing a lot of as long as we are duped into thinking the government and central planning is more wise and efficient than the free market.

http://www.recovery.gov/
http://www.recovery.org/
http://reason.tv/video/show/780.html