The President has introduced a new tool on WhiteHouse.gov, Open for Questions, which lets you submit  questions on the economy and vote on those submitted by others:

“Open for Questions” is a new experiment for WhiteHouse.gov, the President’s latest effort to open up the White House and give Americans from around the country a direct line to the Administration.

This first round will deal with a chief concern for all of us: the economy.  We’ve created a few categories to better organize the questions, and encourage you to search for a specific question before you submit your own in case it already exists.

To get started, head over to http://WhiteHouse.gov/OpenForQuestions and set up your account.  Then follow the simple instructions to start voting on questions or submit your own (we encourage you to include a link to a published video of the question being asked, although this is not required).

As of this writing, people have submitted over 20,000 questions and cast over half a million votes to help prioritize the questions. The President plans on answering some of these questions during an online town hall on Thursday, March 26, 2009.

It’s not too hard to see where this could lead – an open government site that combines new media and Digg-like voting.

Is Obama is turning WhiteHouse.gov into a social media site?