House Budget Committee Letterhead
House Budget Committee
PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Angela Kuck -- 202-226-9844
March 3, 2003


Budget Committee Web Site Wins Award

The House Budget Committee today was identified in a non-partisan, independent study as having one of the best web sites in Congress. The site www.budget.house.gov received the Congress Online Bronze Mouse Award from the Congress Online Project, a non-profit education association. This is the second consecutive year the site was recognized by the association.

"The federal budget process can be a particularly complicated and confusing subject," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle. "Our goal for the Web site is to make information on the budget as accessible and easy to understand as possible."

"I am extremely proud of this award because it shows me that we're doing a good job of taking a difficult subject, and making it easier for the general public to grasp." said Nussle.

The committee's Web site features links to information on the budget process for all levels of interest. For example, a "Budget Tutorial" provides basic information on the budget process. The "Budget Monitor" describes the impact of events and legislation, such as the war on terrorism, on the federal budget. "Budget Week," a weekly newsletter printed when the House is in session, summarizes budgetary issues in upcoming legislation. The site also provides numerous charts and graphs that help make the federal budget easier to understand.

In addition to the wide breadth of information the site covers, it is typically updated once or more per day to provide its users with the most current information available.

The House Budget Committee's web site was one of a select few sites to be recognized by the study "Congress Online: Assessing and Improving Capitol Hill Web Sites" which evaluated 610 Web sites in Congress – all Member office, committee and leadership sites – to determine which sites were the best and to assess how well Congress was using this relatively-new communications medium.

The report is designed to both critique current web site practices and provide a blueprint for congressional offices that wish to improve their web sites. The complete list of the Congress Online Mouse Award winners is available in the report on the web site of the Congressional Management Foundation.