by Sharon Rondeau
(Oct. 15, 2025) — Non-profit OpentheBooks.com has launched a poll asking readers to vote for the most egregious government waste of taxpayer money.
For more than 15 years, the organization has delved into government spending at the local, state and federal levels through FOIA requests, making public the results of its findings. “We follow every dollar. From government salaries to secret contracts, we expose the spending they don’t want you to see,” it states on its home page.
“Every Dime. Online. In Real Time” is its slogan.
At the federal level, OTB has obtained records on scores of agencies and sub-agencies showing their respective missions, number of employees and expenditures over time.
“According to new data obtained by Open the Books,” the organization reported on its Substack in July, “Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests last year that were labeled ‘complex’ had an average response time of 267 days across 416 agencies. ‘Simple’ requests took an average of 39 days for an initial response, but 31 agencies still took in excess of 100 days on average. At two agencies, that number was more than 800 days. 100 business days is roughly five calendar months. 800 is an astonishing 40 months, or more than 3 years. It’s simply unacceptable.”
Last month The Post & Email finally received a response from the FBI to a 2017 FOIA request regarding Hillary Clinton’s private email server, constituting an eight-year waiting period.
The poll can be found here and offers six options. A donation is not required to participate.