Government Spending

[familyof6]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,304224,00.html

What do you think? Is there any good reason for the public to NOT know how it's tax dollars are being spent by the government? I can't think of one. It's interesting to note how the presdential hopefuls are split on this one.

[Sheepdog]

The only reason not to make government spending publicly available information is because they have spending in there they don't want you to know about.

[familyof6]

The only reason not to make government spending publicly available information is because they have spending in there they don't want you to know about.

That's exactly what I think. I think that the way the candidates are divided on this issue is very telling as to their character. This isn't even a liberal/conservative issue. I think this is an issue of honesty and dishonesty.

[Sheepdog]

Aye. Both sides should have good reason to support openness and accountability. But corruption is not partisan, either.

[nomad]

One exception I can think of is intelligence based. Just knowing how much money is spent on something tells you a lot, not to mention you don't want to announce secret programs to the world. The amount of money actually spent on intellgence in the US is something of a secret in itself. You might think it's just military stuff, but all kinds of things - how much money is spent on law enforcement in Yellowstone National Park might be useful to someone. I don't know how much of this is available now, maybe it's already available.

We would like to know this, but so would many foreign governments. You could just allow some exceptions for the military and intelligence divisions, but unfortunately that is likely where a lot of the corruption and waste is as well.

Another possible disadvantage - and honestly this is also an advantage of the program - is additional politicization of the budget process. Yes, now it's harder to justify that useless research on Belgian endives at your local university - but maybe it's also harder to get your much-needed research on space-age metallurgy as well.

Neither of these are really objections that mean it's not a good idea though. The US is strong enough (I think) so that the perceived reduction in security is probably not much of an issue. And the advantages and disadvantages of the additional politicization are not clear.

This is definitely a move towards true democracy though, where the will of the people is supreme. This is different than a republic, where you vote for representatives, not issues, whom you then expect to represent you and do the right thing for your community based on common values instead. I think it's subtly different. Perhaps in a few years, we will have politicians running local polls in their home district before voting yes or no on anything, and it won't matter who actually gets elected anymore.