This forum has chronicled Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter?s accurate assessment of the negative influence teachers? unions have on the quality of public education.

Now Alter makes a good case for more transparency in the federal government:

The Internet offers new ways to use openness as a huge money saver. As a senator, Obama won approval of a “Google for government” bill that requires the posting of a brief description of federal contracts. He should now go further and mandate PDFs of all contracts with the private sector. The yelps of these companies living off the federal teat must be ignored; when competitors see the contracts, they’ll race to convince the government they can do the same things cheaper.

Subtract the gratuitous Bush administration bashing, and I suspect Alter?s assessment would draw some praise from Locke Foundation transparency advocates Chad Adams and Joe Coletti.