Blog Archives
Don’t You Love the Smell of Corruption
D.C. is the Nation’s capital, but it is also the capital of corruption. Needless to say, I am not surprised that some on the D.C. City Council are being accused of corruption for various money scandals. Currently, the FBI is investigating city councilman Harry Thomas, Jr. for charges of corruption and tax evasion.
However, the most recent allegation plaguing the city council is one that is more damning. According to The Washington Examiner, a live feed from a D.C. Council was recently cut during a press conference, as Council Chairman Kwame Brown was being questions about the ethics scandal and the poor approval ratings. While the press conference was about upcoming legislation, reporters wanted to focus on the ethics scandal. After all, people are outraged and questions need to be answered. The excuse was that Brown, nor his Chief of Staff did not know that the feed was turned off.
What does the D.C. Council have to be afraid of? The live feed was turned off, which results in a lack of transparency. Transparency is essential in government. Shouldn’t the Council answer for their actions? Whatever the case may be, the people don’t deserve to be left out in the cold in terms of what is happening on the D.C. City Council.
Bernanke Finally Recognizes Transparency (or his so-called version of transparency)
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke must be realizing something … there is great disdain for the lack of transparency for their policy. Why did it take so long? Perhaps, it was the efforts of Rep. Ron Paul and HR 459. In fact, a majority of Americans favor government transparency to see how their tax dollars being used.
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Bernanke said that he would hold press conferences four times a year to discuss economic forecasts. While that might seem like a small step, there should be more transparency. This transparency should go back to how they have handled economic crisis, etc. Perhaps, they can explain why the dollar has declined in value.
For now, Bernanke’s efforts to hold a press conference once every quarter is not enough. It’s laughable at best.
The Push for Government Transparency is Growing
Today, Sunshine Review launched a new website called Sunshine Standard, which is a new online platform designed for legislators and activists that will become a national model for launching transparency reforms across the country and will assist Americans in holding their legislators accountable.
Mike Barnhart, President of Sunshine Review, said in a statement:
“Most state and local governments do not embrace transparency. Even fewer proactively share information.”
Transparency exists largely at the munificence of officials, with the burden of negotiating complex and costly FOIA petitions resting squarely on the shoulders of citizens and journalists.
Barnhart stressed that “state and local governments, and school districts, have an affirmative obligation to transparency reforms that proactively share the information people need to hold officials accountable for how tax money is spent and how the people’s business is conducted. We must set the bar for state and local government transparency.
Sunshine Standard is a guide to these reforms being implemented across the country.”
Sunshine Standard model transparency legislation was endorsed by state legislators, who attended the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Annual Meeting earlier this year.
Transparency, at the local, state, and federal levels, is needed now more than ever. When Barack Obama was campaigning for President in 2008, he promised the nation that he would allow people to access a more transparent government. Unfortunately, this has been a promise that has been mostly unfulfilled by the President and Congress.
Cross posted at Bearing Drift
Transparency is in the House
During the House session yesterday, legislation was passed requiring that voting records of Members of the House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate be easily retrieved online with a vote of 86 to 13. Del. Jim LeMunyon (R-Chantilly) introduced this legislation, and it received support from both parties. All 20 first term members of the House signed on as co-patrons.
Currently, the Virginia General Assembly’s website has a feature that allows you to see a legislator’s vote on a particular bill, but it does not have a feature, where you can see how your legislators voted on issues by name. This legislation will require that the General Assembly website will allow people to search by Member name in addition to bill number.
LeMunyon said in his floor speech on Monday, “Many of us often recall the well-known words of Thomas Jefferson, ‘Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.’. House Bill 778 affords us the opportunity to reaffirm our confidence in Mr. Jefferson’s words.”
Jim LeMunyon Introduces House Transparency Bill
Del. Jim LeMunyon (R-67th) introduced legislation that would require that all votes taken in committee and on the floor of the Virginia House and Senate to be posted on the General Assembly’s website and indexed by name.
HB 778 has been referred to the Committee on Rules.
This is great news for bringing more transparency to the state government and helps to hold our leaders accountable for their votes on certain policies.
A Transparent Federal Reserve is a Start
This morning, I was reading the Wall Street Journal, when I came across an op-ed written by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that I found particularly interesting. You see, I have been quite outspoken about my desire to see the Federal Reserve eliminated (hopefully, in my lifetime, I will see this agency gone), because the agency was supposed to protect the value of our currency, yet the dollar has lost nearly 95% of its value. Full transparency is needed at the Federal Reserve level (and I believe transparency is needed with all branches of government, with the exception being anything that compromises our national security), and both Paul and DeMint argue this point eloquently in their op-ed.
Another good point that this op-ed brings up is how the Federal Reserve Chairman, when testifying before Congress often provides vague answers, instead of addressing the questions about how Federal Reserve is complying with mandates of prices and employment. Both Paul and DeMint call for an audit of the Federal Reserve by saying that there is a need to find out where the money is going, the numbers and types of securities purchased, and the amount paid for those securities.
In coming weeks we plan to offer companion amendments to legislation already before the House and Senate that will open the Fed up to a complete audit. The amendments set a six-month time lag on the publication of previously unreleased audit data to address the Fed’s concerns that actions undertaken in support of monetary policy would immediately be politicized. The transcripts and minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meetings would continue to be made public at the Fed’s discretion, with unpublicized details of meetings not subject to any additional scrutiny. Finally, the amendments make clear that the purpose of the audits is not to interfere with or dictate monetary policy.
As strong opponents of government intervention into the economy, we do not want to see Congress directly dictate monetary policy. But while the Fed is involved so heavily in monetary policy and its actions so heavily influence the future of our economy, it is necessary that it be fully transparent. Interventions into the economy on the order of trillions of dollars cannot continue to escape public scrutiny. American taxpayers deserve better.
Exactly, both Paul and DeMint hit it on the nail. American taxpayers deserve better, and we deserve to see exactly what is happening with our currency. This is the type of transparency that is needed at the Federal level, and it is one step closer to an open, more efficient government.
Transparency and the Federal Reserve
It is about time that the Federal Reserve is audited to continue the trend of full transparency of the government. H.R. 1207 was introduced by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) to bring full transparency to the Federal Reserve, and this bill has 245 cosponsors to date (including Reps. Rob Wittman, Randy Forbes, Bob Goodlatte, Frank Wolf, and Tom Perriello of Virginia).
Listen to Paul’s comments from a recent Cato Institute event, where he further discussed his initiative to bring transparency to an agency that, in my opinion, needs to be abolished. Bringing transparency to this agency is a good start.
Transparency Among Virginia Counties
The Sunshine Review, a web site devoted to government transparency at the state and local levels recently evaluated counties and jurisdictions across the United States, in terms of how much open information that is accessible to the public. In Virginia, there were some surprising statistics on how open government was by accounting dealings with lobbyists, expenditures, taxes, and budgets.
In Northern Virginia, several counties had good to mediocre transparency on their websites. Fairfax County has a fairly good record of transparency on their website, as they place the Board of Supervisors’ contact information and term dates listed. Additionally, there are lists of previous budgets, county board agendas, bid requests, county contracts, as well as places where you can make tax payments to the county. However, it lacks in listing department officials’ contact information or any lobbyists who might be employed by the county. Arlington County also accounts for the same amount of transparency on their website.
Loudoun County is more open with their dealings on their website, as it lists the same information as Fairfax, and the only thing not listed on their website is the public record. Where Fairfax County does not list department officials’ contact information or lobbyists who petition on behalf of the county, Loudoun County makes this information accessible.
Both Prince William County and the City of Alexandria have more restrictions on what they list on their sites. Lobbying affiliations are not mentioned, and both governments list their budgets, contact information for their elected officials and department heads, audits are available, and FOIA filing instructions are prominently displayed.
Overall, the Northern Virginia counties all have good transparency measures in place. There is still more work that needs to be done to ensure full transparency is available to the taxpayers. While Northern Virginia leads the Commonwealth in transparency, Virginia is still better than some of our neighboring states, when it comes down to transparency and accountability.
Transparency is good for government
If there is one thing that residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia will soon love, this will be the fact that they can watch how the government spends money. In addition, they will be able to monitor virtually every aspect of the state government. Transparency, not only provides accountability, but it provides an insight into which programs receive more money than others, etc. This is simply put, good politics and good government.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch recently discussed how transparency will benefit the government. While we can monitor how the government spends our hard-earned dollars, many of our lawmakers will also be able to see the benefits as well. They can take a glimpse into which programs are receiving more funding than others and know where to make cuts. Even, Del. Sam Nixon (R-Chesterfield) made a good point when he said, “The public has the right to know when people are being paid by other people to represent their interests before the government.”
While there had been some dissension in the past with transparency, this will be beneficial to hold our legislators and government accountable for budget expenditures.
