Factoring in the expense of design work, reasonable labor fees, fixed hardware costs, and a rushed six-month development window, is $9 million unreasonably pricey for a new and improved Recovery.gov? Smart and informed people are having that debate in the Sunlight Labs discussion group. Join in. Meanwhile, though, the RNC has quickly pounced on the $18 million overall price tag on the redesign contract in a new web spot hitting Obama on the effectiveness of stimulus spending. And it's bubbled up to Fox News, outrage meter stuck on about 9.

Worth noting is that Recovery.gov isn't going to succeed if it's little more than brochureware. In the best light, the site is itself a powerful mechanism for oversight on far huger sums of money than $18 million -- like, say, the $9 billion that disappeared in Iraq a few years back. The site, for example, is right now promoting webinars to demonstrate to both federal agencies and down-the-ladder recipients of federal dollars how they can conduct responsible reporting of where the money is spent.