Government Spending / 2013 90% open

What data is expected?

Records of actual (past) national government spending at a detailed transactional level; at the level of month to month government expenditure on specific items (usually this means individual records of spending amounts under $1m or even under $100k). (Note: Just a database of contracts awarded or similar is not considered sufficient. This data category refers to detailed ongoing data on actual expenditure)

What data is available

•   Does the data exist? Yes
•   Is data in digital form? Yes
•   Publicly available? Yes
•   Is the data available for free? Yes
•   Is the data available online? Yes (Here)
•   Is the data machine readable? Yes (CSV, XML)
•   Available in bulk? Yes
•   Openly licensed? Yes (No URL given)
•   Is the data provided on a timely and up to date basis? No

Details

The data at USASpending.gov accounts for only a fraction of all government spending, and it is organized in a way that makes it hard to understand and use. So while it's open data, it's only a small part of federal spending data. It does not include expenses on government salaries and operating expenditures or information on Medicare, the nation's government sponsored medical insurance for the elderly (~20% of total spending). There are no government-wide spending records that would actually be more helpful --- that is, the government doesn't collect the type of data about its own spending that would be useful to the open government world.