How to make government transparent

[Mr-Money]

What we need is a website where the expenses of every MP/Congressman and every government programme are listed, penny by penny. We want to know who is paying the money, what is being bought, who it is being bought from, and how much it costs. And it should all be posted on a website on a daily basis, as the money is being spent. That would be a transparent government.

Same goes for voting. Every member of the public's vote should be posted online, so that we the people can independently check that the voting has been rigged. We need a system where your vote only counts if you independently verify it once the results have been posted. That would completely prevent vote rigging. That is the ONLY way you can prevent vote rigging.

Oh, and by the way: we should have elections every YEAR, not every 4 or every "whenever Gordon Brown wants to call one". A budget is proposed every year. If the people like the budget, they'll vote in the government for another year. If they don't, they're out the door. Easy and transparent.

[skyraider]

I think the Queen should dissolve Parliament right now and hold new elections.

[Mr-Money]

At 5/22/09 11:29 AM, skyraider wrote: I think the Queen should dissolve Parliament right now and hold new elections.

Well sure, but having new elections won't prevent us from getting into this mess down the line.

We need to address the fundamental problem, which is a lack of transparency and influence from the people.

[skyraider]

At 5/22/09 11:37 AM, Mr-Money wrote:

At 5/22/09 11:29 AM, skyraider wrote: I think the Queen should dissolve Parliament right now and hold new elections.

Well sure, but having new elections won't prevent us from getting into this mess down the line.

We need to address the fundamental problem, which is a lack of transparency and influence from the people.

No no no, that's not the problem at all. The problem is that your Government has concentrated too much power in the hands of the political class, which will always be a slimy bunch of slithering snakes. Transparency will not make them angels. Too many years of Labour, and too much experimentation with the policies of those like Mr. Attlee, have contributed to a bloated Government.

Now the only question on PMQ is, "Mr. Prime Minister, how will you ensure the people of [X town] that you will provide them with [other peoples' money for cause Y] ?"

[Mr-Money]

At 5/22/09 11:40 AM, skyraider wrote: No no no, that's not the problem at all. The problem is that your Government has concentrated too much power in the hands of the political class

If you have transparency and elections every year, the people can have the chance to change that. Every single politician should have to be elected by the public.

[skyraider]

At 5/22/09 11:43 AM, Mr-Money wrote:

At 5/22/09 11:40 AM, skyraider wrote: No no no, that's not the problem at all. The problem is that your Government has concentrated too much power in the hands of the political class

If you have transparency and elections every year, the people can have the chance to change that. Every single politician should have to be elected by the public.

If you extract the maximum amount of transparency from the government and get the maximum number of people to care and read that information, the corruption may be lessened, but not the bad policies and occasional large scandals. I think your ideas are good ones to implement.

[Dante-Son-Of-Sparda]

At 5/22/09 11:23 AM, Mr-Money wrote: What we need is a website where the expenses of every MP/Congressman and every government programme are listed, penny by penny. We want to know who is paying the money, what is being bought, who it is being bought from, and how much it costs. And it should all be posted on a website on a daily basis, as the money is being spent. That would be a transparent government.

not nessecary and would be a giant waste of time.

Same goes for voting. Every member of the public's vote should be posted online, so that we the people can independently check that the voting has been rigged. We need a system where your vote only counts if you independently verify it once the results have been posted. That would completely prevent vote rigging. That is the ONLY way you can prevent vote rigging.

unconstitutional for the right to anonymously vote. and they have plenty of safeguards already man jesus.

Oh, and by the way: we should have elections every YEAR, not every 4 or every "whenever Gordon Brown wants to call one". A budget is proposed every year. If the people like the budget, they'll vote in the government for another year. If they don't, they're out the door. Easy and transparent.

to much redtape and campaign ads on tv are annoying enough we only need a dose of that every 4 years. plus the 4 years idea is actually really good along with the 2 term limit.

[JanusGrayden]

At 5/22/09 11:23 AM, Mr-Money wrote: Same goes for voting. Every member of the public's vote should be posted online, so that we the people can independently check that the voting has been rigged. We need a system where your vote only counts if you independently verify it once the results have been posted. That would completely prevent vote rigging. That is the ONLY way you can prevent vote rigging.

The sole reason this was created was to prevent vote rigging. If nobody knows who you actually voted for, then there's no way to coerce you into voting a certain way. Oh and, by the way, there is no federal law against discriminating against political affiliation. It wouldn't even matter if there was. If a large company knows which of their employees voted unfavorably, they could trump up any nonsense they wanted in order to fire them, it's not hard to do. If there was a distasteful ratio of employees who voted unfavorably within, say, a particular branch or department, you could cite cost-cutting measures and liquidate the whole lot of them.

[ReiperX]

Posting where every penny goes can cause some security issues. There are black projects in existence, and honestly we don't need to know how much money is being spent on these projects, and what they are.

[dySWN]

You could always just construct the DMV out of glass...

yeah, maybe it isn't that funny.

[JanusGrayden]

At 5/22/09 02:02 PM, ReiperX wrote: Posting where every penny goes can cause some security issues. There are black projects in existence, and honestly we don't need to know how much money is being spent on these projects, and what they are.

Of course, this is the inherent problem in black projects. There are times when the government has to act in secrecy for legitimate reasons. Of course, like anything in a perfect world, this lends itself to abuse. Currently, the only practical method is to have oversight committees to make sure everything is ethical. Obviously, there are flaws with this system.

[Mr-Money]

At 5/22/09 01:12 PM, Dante-Son-Of-Sparda wrote: not nessecary and would be a giant waste of time.

I'm sorry, but HOW THE HELL would posting the government's expenditure be a waste of time? It would let the public see if the government is being efficient or corrupt. Then, when election time comes, people would vote based on actual statistics rather than stupid slogans.

You really are a complete tool.

[ReiperX]

At 5/22/09 03:05 PM, Mr-Money wrote:

At 5/22/09 01:12 PM, Dante-Son-Of-Sparda wrote: not nessecary and would be a giant waste of time.

I'm sorry, but HOW THE HELL would posting the government's expenditure be a waste of time? It would let the public see if the government is being efficient or corrupt. Then, when election time comes, people would vote based on actual statistics rather than stupid slogans.

You really are a complete tool.

First, how many people would actually take the time and read through it? Maybe 5% of the population would even go through the summaries of it, and maybe 1% would actually care enough to read the entire thing.

[Mr-Money]

At 5/22/09 03:07 PM, ReiperX wrote: First, how many people would actually take the time and read through it? Maybe 5% of the population would even go through the summaries of it, and maybe 1% would actually care enough to read the entire thing.

It doesn't matter how many people read it. That's up to the people, whether they want to read it or not.

But people who DO want to read it currently have no way to do so..... We need to change that, and then people who care can see exactly what the government is spending our money on.

Again, if you don't believe the government should have to reveal what it spends OUR money on, you are very deluded.

[aviewaskewed]

At 5/22/09 01:12 PM, Dante-Son-Of-Sparda wrote: not nessecary and would be a giant waste of time.

For what reason is it unnecessary or a waste? I saw the head of TARP last week admit on Bill Maher's show that there's 3 billion dollars that TARP can't account for. It's just gone, this is from the bailouts, the banks just took it and the agency in charge of keeping the books on this stuff isn't aware of what happened. I think some in the public would love to have the ability to know what the government spends their tax money on, of course it'll never happen, and even if it did how do we know for a fact that if they say "we spent 3 million dollars on tax relief" that that really is where the money went? We would have to take their word for it wouldn't we? That's the only argument I can see against it and for what you're saying that it'd be a waste of time.

unconstitutional for the right to anonymously vote. and they have plenty of safeguards already man jesus.

Agreed that we shouldn't know who votes what way. We do need reform in the system though as it's been proven that some company's machinery is easily hackable and riggable. But electioneering is hard to avoid, it's been going on forever, ever since elections started, it's just that in the last 3 elections with all the new technology and changes to HOW we vote that it's become such a mainstream issue.

to much redtape and campaign ads on tv are annoying enough we only need a dose of that every 4 years. plus the 4 years idea is actually really good along with the 2 term limit.

I think we now moved from a "how elections in general should be held" to "how my national elections should be held" thing here that you're commenting on. I do agree that every year elections won't work because one of the reasons that we give elected officials 4 to six years is because really, when you consider the amount of time it can take to get your policies going and voted in, it would probably take roughly 2 to 3 years before someone could really judge what you're impact has been.

[RealitycheckChav]

Like they would ever let that kind of info out.. then we would know where it was going.
it would send the world mad.. what kind of crap do you think they waste our money on?

[Samuel-HALL]

Would it matter if the government's expenses were posted and documented? They are not hiding their corruption from anyone. They openly and without recourse vote on pork-barrel projects, with no fear of public reprisal. They openly and in the wide eye of the media infect the private sector, and buy up stocks to banks. In plain site they subsidize farmers. They slid in the income tax on the citizens with ease, and applaud. In plain site and with great approval, they passed the patriot act. Their list of campaign contributors is often open to public viewing.

They don't operate on fat white guys in a smoky room at three A.M. They operate by us consenting to it, or ignoring it.

[Dante-Son-Of-Sparda]

At 5/22/09 03:05 PM, Mr-Money wrote: You really are a complete tool.

At least im not a nut job conspiracy theorist.

[Victory]

At 5/22/09 11:23 AM, Mr-Money wrote: Oh, and by the way: we should have elections every YEAR, not every 4 or every "whenever Gordon Brown wants to call one". A budget is proposed every year. If the people like the budget, they'll vote in the government for another year. If they don't, they're out the door. Easy and transparent.

Of course, the argument against this is that nothing would ever get done - how can a government implement, say, a long-term policy, if they are going to be voted out before they have had a chance with it?

[aviewaskewed]

At 5/25/09 02:08 PM, Dante-Son-Of-Sparda wrote: At least im not a nut job conspiracy theorist.

Wow, you really told him *eye roll*

[aviewaskewed]

At 5/25/09 02:08 PM, Dante-Son-Of-Sparda wrote: At least im not a nut job conspiracy theorist.

Wow, you really told him *eye roll*