our guest is sheila krumholz. caller: the $5.3 billion spent in the last election, can you break it down to how much of it was spent by unions, how much of the money that unions spent, which direction, republican, democrat, or other, and also as we talk about these major contribute tores, can you tell us how much money george sorros contributed compared to the koch brothers. guest: on open secrets.org, you can see how much unions are giving in each cycle to candidates and parties as well as outside spending. you can look at public sector vs. transportation and public trade. for the union sector, which are the organizations which are ponying up the most money. unfortunately, unions give far, far less. the -- so they do give almost entirely to democrats. many unions have given more over the last decade to republicans. some unions are more conservative than others. but by far they give the vast majority to past and individual executives. even outside interest groups. from 1989 to 2010, they contributed roughly 5.5 mi

sheila krumholz identifies the individuals and groups spurring advertising around the country. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. on c-span. in his weekly radio and internet address, president obama urges congress to agree on a budget that cuts government spending without sacrificing needed investments in education. he gives his remarks from high school in miami where he spoke to students and faculty members. the tennessee rep has the republican address. she says reducing government regulation is the path towards job growth. >> i am visiting a school in miami. jeb bush and i feel it is an american issue with education. we've got to deal with what teachers and students are doing. we have to step up our game. our top priority has to be creating new jobs and opportunities in a fiercely competitive world. this week, we received good news on that front. we learned the unemployment rate has fallen to the lowest level in nearly two years as the economy added another 222,000 private-sector jobs last month. we have a lot more work to do. the progress we are seeing says something

sheila krumholz, executive director of the center for responsive and politics, and jennifer lafleur, director of computer assisted reporting at propublica. we're going to start with todd. you came to hhs about two years ago to help harness the power of data, technology, and innovation. you have been a leader in work on open government. part of the open government working group. what do you see as the major changes, particularly at hhs, in the deployment of data and its use both inside and outside the government? and i am going to come back to you after the other panelists speak and ask your response to their critique of government data. suu kyi the first answer short. >> from my perspective -- so keep the first into a short. >> yes, this is best exemplified by something that we're calling our health initiative. it was born about a year ago. what was happening was that we were trying to think about how we can maximize the power of the data that we're sitting on. medicaid, medicaid services, nih, and others. an unbelievable amount of data. and used for varying services. so what can we

sheila krumholz identifies the individual donating and spurring political movements around the country find more and more at the behavior of professional sports owners to be unseemly in the sense that they want hundreds of millions of dollars from the community and yet they don't really participate in the problems of those communities. >> this sunday on "q&a" sally jenkins on the intersection of sports and public policy. >> over 1000 middle and high school students entered this year's documentary competition. the theme, washington d.c. through my lands. c-span will announce the winners of the competition wednesday morning during our "washington journal" program. >> the 28 annual national press foundation award dinner was held earlier this week at the washington hilton hotel here in the nation's capital. among this year's honorees, andrea mitchell, dana-from cnn, it gilbert gross hon. and others gilbert grosvenor.inne >> my grandfather tweeted me this morning and said for all of you to pay attention, because what he is going to tell you tonight is how congress is battling over raising t

next up is sheila krumholz the executive director of the center for responsive that -- responsible politicswhich is a group that -- money and politics. she became a drifter in 2006 having served for the previous eight years as the senate's research director in a porsche he first joined sierra p. crp in 1989 and if i recall correctly in my notes apparently indicate this that she worked as an assistant editor for the first edition of open secrets. the complex here is that we sit on my discussion group together and i admire her work and sunlight of course helps fund open secrets which is the web site that they run in terms of making the underlying data available to the public. moving onto my left is lisa rosenberg ricochets they government affairs consultant and of course since i work at sunlight and she works at sunlight are just there about 10 feet apart so there's probably conflict there as well. she is employed by bernstein strategy group at her role is to lobby congress to meet legislative changes to improve transparency in government. she served as an l.a. -- advising them on issues of t

we will wrap up the program with sheila krumholz talking about political movement's and advertisements around the country with an eye toward the 2012 election. thank you very much for watching this edition of "washington journal." we will see you tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> next, a house oversight hearing on the u.s. postal service. then the president's 2012 budget request for nasa. it is followed by discussions with the crew of the space shuttle discovery. the u.s. postal service is on course to run a deficit of about $6.50 billion in the current fiscal year. this is after an $8.50 billion deficit last year. a subcommittee look at the financial state of the postal service with testimony by the postmaster general, the chair of the postal regulatory commission and the head of the national association of letter carriers. this is one hour, 55 minutes. this is one hour, 55 minutes. >> we will do opening statements from the ranking member and the whole committee. we