Federal bailout mess untangled by innovative web sites

Trying to keep straight the history, costs and other important, but depressing, details about all the federal bailout package can be frustrating. It’s been reported that even federal accountants and Members of Congress are concerned about keeping track of the billions of dollars being spent to prop up banks, insurance companies, auto makers and school districts. (Yes, school districts. Namely, the Olmsted Falls City Schools in Olmsted Falls, Ohio.)

Now comes two relatively respected sources (although both are mocked regularly by Rush Limbaugh) providing interesting formats in which to obtain some sense — as vague as it might still be — of how many bailout dollars have been spent and where. And when, in some cases.

The New York Times is attempting to regularly update the federal checkbook with its “Tracking the $700 Billion Bailout” page — which might need a headline update now that it’s become clear the bailout will cost more than $700 billion.

This site also provides convenient links to each entity receiving or requesting federal bailout funds. And yes, you can link to the Olmsted Falls web site and learn more about their $100 million request for federal stimulus money.

More visually appealing is the work by the folks at Slate.com. They have created a growing ring of circles — manipulated by mouse-overs — that attempt to provide a chronological explanation of the bailout effort.

Slate explains: “Since the economic-stimulus package in February, the federal government has offered more than a dozen multibillion-dollar rescue packages for a variety of industries and people endangered by the financial chaos and the recession. The magnitude of even one of these mega-bailouts is hard enough to grasp … and combined they represent trillions of dollars in federal commitments. The following Slate visualization attempts to put the magnitude of these rescue packages in perspective.”

(The City Wire encourages you to visit the Slate web site before the growing bailout rings require you to buy a bigger screen. And no, you can’t get federal bailout funds to buy big-screen TVs. Or can you?)

Providing even more perspective, the journalists at ProPublica have researched and produced a history of federal bailouts dating back to 1970. The impressive report provides the cost in 2008 dollars of the past bailouts, and even reports on what happened after each bailout.

The Chrysler bailout in 1980 is valued at $4 billion in 2008 dollars, which is proving to be mere pocket change for Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

And yet one more group is attempting to provide relevant and timely information about federal bailout efforts. (Is there any chance that all this bailout watching could generate enough employment to bail us out of this recession?) FedSources, a Washington, D.C.-based management group company, maintains a web site that provides daily and weekly reports on federal and state bailout actions.

The most recent post on FedSources notes: “With recent announcement of a $6 billion investment in GMAC Financial Services LLC, the federal government has now committed more bailout money than Congress has approved. As the Washington Post reported on December 31, the Treasury Department is ‘effectively making more promises than it can afford to keep.’”

Can anyone be shocked that in a town run by politicians a federal agency is making more promises that it can keep?