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Our Mission

OMB Watch exists to increase government transparency and accountability; to ensure sound, equitable regulatory and budgetary processes and policies; and to protect and promote active citizen participation in our democracy.

Our Vision

OMB Watch envisions a more just and democratic society, one in which an open, responsive government protects people’s health, safety, and well-being, safeguards the environment, honors the public’s right to information, values an engaged and effective citizenry, and adequately invests in the common good.

Our History

OMB Watch, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, was formed in 1983 to lift the veil of secrecy shrouding the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB oversees federal regulation, the budget, information collection and dissemination, proposed legislation, testimony by agencies, and much more. While OMB's actions were having an enormous impact on agency operations and the pursuit of social justice, it remained largely behind the scenes — unaccountable and little understood by the public and public interest groups. By explaining governmental processes and monitoring OMB, OMB Watch helped bring sunshine to this powerful and secretive agency.

Our Work

Since its founding, OMB Watch has expanded its focus to address the substantive issues the organization originally began tracking in the course of monitoring OMB:

• Federal budget, taxation, and government performance;
• Information and access;
• Nonprofit action, advocacy, policy, and technology; and
• Regulatory policy.

At the national level, OMB Watch is deeply engaged in policy debate and formulation and is well-known for convening diverse coalitions comprising nonprofits that deal with environmental, low-income, health, education, consumer, labor, religious, and other public interest issues. In 2004, we spearheaded the launch of OpenTheGovernment.org, an unprecedented coalition of journalists, environmentalists, labor, and consumer and good government groups seeking more open and accountable government. In 2006, we re-energized a coalition of environmental and health right-to-know activists, called the Working Group on Community Right-to-Know, and merged that work into OMB Watch. Later that year, working with the support of groups and individuals from across the political spectrum, OMB Watch launched FedSpending.org, a free website that allows users to search through several years of information on government spending. FedSpending.org has been so successful that it has already seen millions of visitors and searches and served as the model for the federal government website USASpending.gov.

OMB Watch also works closely with state and community groups across the country. Since our first days, we have conducted workshops and briefings on a range of federal issues in collaboration with hundreds of grassroots organizations that today regularly help us with our work. One good example of this work is RTK NET, which OMB Watch launched in 1989 as an online service providing environmental data. We have since taught thousands of small groups how to use RTK NET and other online and Internet technologies effectively to address problems in their communities.

OMB Watch recognizes that the policy work on fair taxes and spending, government secrecy, and regulatory responsiveness depends on an engaged citizenry. That is why we have a 25-year track record of actively protecting the advocacy and speech rights of the nonprofit sector. All of OMB Watch's strategies come into use when protecting speech rights: we monitor and analyze government actions; we take policy positions when needed; and we build strong local, state, and national coalitions to respond to both threats and opportunities.

In all our work, OMB Watch is committed to creating and promoting long-term, proactive initiatives that will advance progressive causes and will change the lives of all Americans for the better.