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Have some information on where the Federal Budget money is going? Not sure how to participate? You can use the instructions below to find out how correctly add your data to the wiki.
Step By Step Guide to Participating
Step One: Locate something to Contribute
Tax Payer Treasure Hunt is always looking for accurate data. We are interested in documenting evidence of exactly what the US Federal budget is spent on, particularly when the reality is different from mainstream news reports or official government versions.
Some good sources for this data are:
Best of all, your own personal experience while working for a government agency or government contractor
- Filings of public data that are not closely scrutinized by the media
- Little known blogs or websites
- Leaked documents or insider information
If you find mainstream media reports about others who have found this sort of information, you can contribute a News Story.
Once you have something to contribute, make you sure review our Editorial Guidelines section and check your information meets our requirements.
If you're all set then, your need to do:
Step Two: Sign Up!
Just visit the Create Account page, fill out the form, and follow the instructions.
Step Three: Choose the Appropriate Category, or Create a New Page
Although we are interested in all federal expenses, our early focus is on the expenses surrounding the President and his administration.
This means we have various subcategories under, including:
These subcategories also contain other subcategories, which are listed near the top of each of these pages: like this:
Simply type the name of your expense in the appropriate field, and then click the relevant 'Add Expense' button. Now go to Step Four: Fill in your Expense Details.
Do you have data on a federal budget expense that doesn't fit under Governmental Expenses? e.g. Do you have a expense related to the Health Care, or Military services?
Although our initial focus does not cover these expenses, you are still welcome to contribute them. All you need to do is start a wiki page, with a relevant title, and type in the information you have. Remember, our Editorial Guidelines still apply, and you must include a reference for your data. For information on creating and changing standard mediawiki pages, see Page Editing.
Over time, we will gradually migrate data for other areas of the federal budget into our forms based database.
Step Four: Fill in your Expense Details
In the Expense Form page, you will see a number of fields to fill in (e.g. Expense Amount, Expense Details, Type of Source, Source Details, and SourceURL). Simply follow the instructions and click Save Page.
You're done, your expense has been added!
OLDER HELP DATA BELOW, NEEDS UPDATING:
How to Add an 'Amount' to the Wiki
1. Scroll to the relevant expense section (or create a new one).
2. Then edit (or add) the following code to the page:
{{Amount
|amount=Know how much Obama spent on this?
|details=Tell us the details!
|source= And please quote your source.
}}
3. Replace the text after the = signs with your own information.
A completed example would look like this:
{{Amount
|amount=$56,000,000
|details=Obama's maid at the White House is paid a salary of $56 million dollars.
|source=Springfield Daily Express, September 26, 2009, pg 4
}}
Please note: This example is fictional!!!
Sourcing
We operate a strict policy on referencing, and when you contribute an expense to the wiki, you must quote a source to support your claims.
You can do this by:
1. Typing the name, date, and pg of the publication, and/or URL of the website.
2. Using the shorthand tag of {{Insider}}
This tag indicates you are privy to the information because you have first hand knowledge as an insider or whistleblower. The {{Insider}} tag will display the following message:
"The poster represents that he/she has personal information to this effect, but is not willing to disclose the source."
Adding a News Article to the Front Page
If you find a relevant news article about the costs of the USA political system, you are welcome to add it to our front page.
To do this:
1. Click the Edit tab on the home page
2. Scroll down until you see:
<!-- ---------------------- -->
<!-- IN THE NEWS -->
<!-- ---------------------- -->
3. Under that are the news articles. You can add a new one at the top, by using this example:
* "'[http://INSERT-THE-ARTICLE-LINK-HERE.COM Insert Article Title]"'
Copy and paste news snippet here. [http://INSERT-THE-ARTICLE-LINK-HERE.COM ...read more at insert name of publication here].
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