231–240 of 273 posts
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Why can't military spends be in one classified bucket and the rest be open and 100% transparent? I don't think information on how much is spent on roads, healthcare, police, education will affect security.
Because that's 550 billion dollars. A very significant portion of that does not need to be secret.
Hopefully having the data in one place can help us calculate that fuzzier side of the equation.
The problem with "radical transparency"is that the worst money-wasters get to hide behind confidentiality in the name of security: 1. Counter-terrorism spending, which wastes money protecting backwaters no terrorist has even heard of 2. The Drug War and it's army of informants 3. Seizures of property and cash, dimensions currently unknown 4. A Cold War-sized military in a post-Cold War world 5. The prison-industrial…
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I disagree. Let me give you an example. Some years ago,the irish police had a grievance, they were paid less pay for holidays than normal working days. This was because when on holiday they were just receiving their normal salary and weren't getting certain other expenses. In other words, these expenses weren't real expenses but a form of tax-free pay. They had been introduced as an under the table pay increase durin…
What's special about individuals who happen to be employed in the public sector or in receipt of welfare payments that makes it OK to intrude on their privacy in this way?
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"I think if we had a crystal-clear/omniscient view of the wastage that goes on in various governments, we'd be collectively appalled." I think the opposite. Most people already believe the government is incredibly wasteful, there's a much greater opportunity in highlighting where it surprisingly efficient. This will serve to blow up many ideological truisms.
Individuals have very personal views of finances. When people are asked how they should spend their own money, they're very careful with it and analyze expenditures and benefits carefully. On an individual basis, money is spent efficiently and people understand that. As the responsibility for spending money is removed from the individual, efficiency plummets. Government jobs are the ultimate in a lack of accountabili…
We seem to know very different people.
While it is true that the market has a tighter feedback loop, that does not ensure good individual decisions. It just means that individuals are punished for bad decisions and rewarded for good decisions quickly.
This is a nice feature of the market but that doesn't mean that it is the only system that can have tight feedback loops. Look at the military for a good example of a non-market structure that has a tight feedback loop and, generally, does very well outside of the market system.
The government may lack some features of the market that doesn't mean that it cannot be as accountable. Good data and analysis for the people is one nice step toward greater government accountability.
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> It should be possible to see exactly where the money was spent all the way down to an invoice With that level of visibility ("down to an invoice"), it's easy for people to take up pitch forks and begin lambasting teachers, for example, for their spending on computer software, materials for class, and so on. Perhaps a doctor's medical decisions would start being questioned left, right, and centre, yet the people doi…
I disagree. Let me give you an example. Some years ago,the irish police had a grievance, they were paid less pay for holidays than normal working days. This was because when on holiday they were just receiving their normal salary and weren't getting certain other expenses. In other words, these expenses weren't real expenses but a form of tax-free pay. They had been introduced as an under the table pay increase durin…
>With an unlimited budget, he went about hiring a team of researchers in Seattle and made a grant to the University of Pennsylvania to help his staff put the information together. Altogether, he has spent more than $10 million between direct funding and grants. $10 million spent so far just trying to figure out what the collective governments in the US is spending money on. Is this an argument for privatization or a…
_Disclaimer: I work for Open Knowledge International and have worked on OpenSpending in the past_ If you're interested in public spending data, take a look at OpenSpending ( https://openspending.org/ ). It's a project that aims to make exploring, visualizing, and searching spending data easier. It's all free software ( https://github.com/openspending ) and you can upload your own datasets or explore others. It also p…
Today I filed my tax return showing all the money that came in and every minute expense required to make that money. Why can't we hold the government to the same standard? There should be one (huge) annual spreadsheet published showing how much money came in (federal, state, and local levels), with a detailed accounting of where every penny went, just like I am required to do for my business to claim deductions.
> There should be one (huge) annual spreadsheet published showing how much money came in (federal, state, and local levels), with a detailed accounting of where every penny went, just like I am required to do for my business to claim deductions. Except for some things like certain national security parts that are specifically protected by law from detailed disclosure, federal, state, and most local governments make a…
for example, would they report on the purchase of Stingrays? License plate scanners that the municipalities 'require' private companies to install?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Let me give you an example. Some years ago,the irish police had a grievance, they were paid less pay for holidays than normal working days. This was because when on holiday they were just receiving their normal salary and weren't getting certain other expenses. In other words, these expenses weren't real expenses but a form of tax-free pay. They had been introduced as an under the table pay increase durin…
Why do you think taxpayers are a group capable of deciding whether tax money is being wasted?