The complaint here with the crowd griping about government spending isn't that there isn't a point there - does waste exist in government agencies? are there bad calls on spending? of course there are - but that it is lazy, generic and non-specific. To get serious on the subject, you have to get serious. You have to get dirty with the numbers.
Oregon state has some useful tools for getting up to speed with a good deal of the information about the state budget. But it isn't notably interactive.
So we'll be highly interested to see what comes of the new project led by former gubernatorial candidate Allen Alley and Republican state Representative Dennis Richardson, which got some play in the Oregonian this morning.
Called Oregon Transportation, it is nicely detailed (much of it seems to be drawn from state documents, but that's not a problem) and it appears to offer numerous and useful was for readers to make specific suggestions about line items and priorities.
It doesn't seem to be yet complete. But it could become a useful tool if enough people take the time to deal with the information in a practical, rather than an ideological, way. We'll keep watch.