• Crowdsourcing Policy: The GOP's YouCut Project 
• This Week on Hypertext: Ten Practical Steps for Improving Your Facebook Presence 
• Tool Time: Multi-Linking Love with Bit.ly Bundles 

In May, House Republican Eric Cantor (R-Va.) launched a website - YouCut - where people can suggest and vote on which government spending programs should be cut from the federal budget.
 
Here’s how it works:

• Republicans suggest possible budget cuts each week, and people can vote online or via text message for the project that they think Congress should eliminate. For instance, currently featured on the site is the recommendation to terminate taxpayer funding of National Public Radio by texting YouCut1 to 68398. This cut has the potential to save “tens of millions of dollars” 
• The GOP will then bring the winning cut to the House floor each week for an up or down vote. A few cuts brought to the floor so far include: cut the new non-reformed Welfare Program ($25 billion savings), reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ($30 billion savings, prohibit hiring new IRS agents to enforce health care law ($15 billion savings), prohibit stimulus funding for promotional signage (tens of millions of savings), bipartisan proposal to terminate AEITC ($1.1 billion savings)
• After the vote, people can see how their representatives voted. In addition, they can see the percentage of time that each representative supported the YouCut community. Unsurprisingly, the chart shows the Republican representatives support the cuts 100%, and on average the democrats support the cut less than 10 % of the time
• The website also features a form to submit your idea for budget cuts and a call to unearth questionable federal grants – currently the site is asking people to look at the National Science Foundation website and submit awards that are not a good use of tax payer dollars

Additional social connections:  YouCut has a Facebook page with 1,500 fans (it’s not active; no updates since July) and uses Cantor’s Twitter handle as main presence - @GOPWhip with 19,000 followers (the #youcut hashtag is active).
 
How it’s being received:  Republicans view the program as a resounding success and point to it as a shining example of social media impacting government policy – giving every American their say. In a recent Fast Company article, they highlighted that more than two million people voted for various spending cuts. One request from Cantor that users search through online expenditure reports to flag questionable figures was said to have received 10,000 responses within a couple of days.
 
From our point of view, the YouCut program needs an infusion of transparency in order to truly demonstrate its impact. There are a tremendous amount of votes being cast in this initiative, but no place to see how each proposal faired. How many votes did the “Reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” cut receive? How did it compare to the other suggestions that week or previous weeks? By not showing the support for each cut in real time the GOP is also missing an opportunity to rally further rally people and call them to action. For instance:  We need more votes to terminate the presidential election fund, so we can take it to the House floor before we vote to stop funding NPR. Crowdsourcing is a powerful tool, but increasing the transparency would better show the pulse of the American people.

The partisan take on the project: Democrats call it a gimmick. Steny Hoyer's office said that it comes as no surprise that Republicans would need to ask Americans for ideas since they "clearly have none of their own when dealing with fiscal responsibility."
 
But that’s not to say Democrats are turning their back on crowdsourcing. The Obama administration introduced the SAVE awards to ask federal workers where they see places the government could tighten its belt. The administration has put the final four proposals (from 18,000 suggestions) out to the public for their opinion, and voting ends today. The winner gets a trip to the White House and time with President Obama.