Maggie's Farm

Every government program involving money should have a built in auditing requirement. It should also be completely and totally transparent not able to be controlled or classified. A good example of this would be a complete audit done by a national accounting firm where the results are made public in complete detail and not simply handed over to the organization. Complete, to the penny, with names, dates and amounts, published in a format that an 8th grader could understand.

It amazes me that pubic officials and bureaucrats can spend tens of thousands of dollars on airfares, accommodations, entertainment and meals and we only find out years later and then only because a billion was stolen and the investigation turned up a thousand little frauds. Every penny should be accounted for in a timely manner and made public. Every voter/citizen should have this information in print and/or online within days to weeks of the spending. Every government credit card should have it's monthly account published with no redactions especially the name of the person using it.

I can only add that I believe the reason there is so little transparency in government spend is exactly to make it easier to defraud the system. Politicians and bureaucrats get direct and indirect paybacks in every case where there is fraud and it is built into the system too hide it.