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Archive-name: auto/soc.politics/Congressional-Budget-Tracking-System-available

The Congressional Budget Tracking System (CBTS) is available by
anonymous ftp from "bert.cs.byu.edu" (128.187.2.20) in the "congress"
directory.  This program requires 6 Megabytes of Hard Disk space, 400k
Ram, on a PC or compatible (no Macintosh until next year).  The file
"install.exe" is a self extracting archive containing the CBTS program
and data files.

The following paragraph was extracted from the "readme.doc" file:

CBTS is a computerized database that cross-indexes the cost of nearly
all spending legislation introduced during the 102nd Congress with the
sponsorship records of each member of the House and Senate.  The data
released today covers legislation introduced through July, 1992.  The
system is the result of extensive software development and data
collection since the first day of the current session of Congress in
January, 1991.

CBTS was produced by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a
non-profit organization in Washinton D.C.  Note: dollar amounts
displayed by the program are in millions of dollars.

My opinion: CBTS provides a very interesting and detailed presentation
that reflects directly the attitudes that our elected representatives
have toward managing and spending our tax dollars based on their own
voting record - this kind of information could change votes.  I come
from a fiscally conservative state, and I was surprised to see a big
difference between the voting record of my representatives and what
they say about their desire to cut the federal deficit.

Regards,
Jim Logan

[ I would love to see this kind of thing available on bigger,
networked systems.  Any possibilities? -CWM]