Let it be noted that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the first senator to join Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., as a co-sponsor of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 championed by a transpartisan coalition of liberal activists, conservative bloggers and assorted good-government groups. Legislators in five states have followed suit in the transparency movement inspired by FFATA, including Kansas, where the new site even allows citizens to drill down to the cost of a state employee’s lunch at Schlotzsky’s Deli. The principle here is unassailable: Taxpayers have a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent. Virginia should be the next state to act.

Creating a spending database is not especially difficult or costly. Congress passed and President Bush signed FFATA little more than a year ago, but already the Google-like searchable database of federal spending — the most comprehensive ever made available to the public — is online at www.USAspending.gov. The FFATA database tracks some $1 trillion in federal grants, contracts, earmarks and loans and is a trove of information. For example, two Virginia entities made last year’s list of the top 100 recipients of federal assistance. The University of Virginia ranked 49th, receiving $217 million, and the Virginia Department of Social Services ranked 55th with $206 million. A bipartisan group of legislators now wants a similar system to give residents of the commonwealth similar access to the notoriously hard-to-decipher Virginia state budget.

Sponsored in the Senate by two Northern Virginians — Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R-Centreville, and Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Vienna — the bill would create a searchable budget database, available to the public at no cost, that would list the amounts and recipients of state funds, the agency that released the funds and, where possible, a hyperlink to the actual contracts or grant applications. The idea, Cuccinelli told The Examiner, is to create a financial “snapshot” of how many tax dollars are coming in and where they are going out. Over time, the database would enable legislators to measure the actual performance of each state-funded program. This kind of information is essential in determining which programs are working — and therefore deserve continued legislative support — and which are not. The fact that it’s now practically impossible, even for members of the General Assembly, to access such data in a timely fashion is reason enough this bill should be passed without delay.