Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Imagine you are a coder and you have a great idea for an app that predicts the weather or identifies traffic flows or helps people navigate the social service system. You know how to code the app, but you can't afford to set up your own system to collect the data--the weather data or the traffic data or what have you. Now, imagine you build the app and you can pull data that the government is already collecting so you can build the app and use the data. It turns out that you have got something that is either good at predicting the weather or helping commuters or helping folks navigate the social services system or whatever and it grows into a business. You can actually employ people. You can put people to work. A project that may have started as a hobby could become your life's work. The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, and specifically title II of this bill called the OPEN Government Data Act, will actually help make stories like that become a common thing. This bill gives entrepreneurs and innovators huge amounts of publicly funded data so that they can innovate and come up with applications that we haven't even thought of yet. It also means that government agencies can share data more easily and ultimately provide services more effectively. Most importantly, it allows citizens to participate in their government by making government more transparent and accountable. Mr.…”