All budget line-items should be reviewed, justified, then prioritized in order of importance. The entire process (except national security items) should be available on the web for public review, comment, and input during the entire budgetary process.
Use Public Zero-Based Budgeting
Tags: budget transparency
Comments (5)
IMHO, a modified version of this idea should be considered especially important in the context of 'national security'. The Bush administration just finished wrecking the US economy as well as its reputation worldwide, in the context of promoting 'national security'. The 'military- industrial complex' is considered sacrosanct by many American citizens as they seem to have forgotten the claim by DoD Secretary D. Rumsfeld that 2.3 $trillion could not be accounted for just a day or so prior to the devastation which occurred on Sept 11, 2001. Now, we are able to better understand the definition of trillions of dollars, however, most citizens have no knowledge of the amount of waste which goes into the 'national security' budgets. It is time the citizenry awakened and took an interest in what the 'security' agencies are doing as well as how they do what they do.
The R&D of the stealth technology is one example of something that has to be kept secret. When I said 'national security', I meant only those items that are Top Secret projects that could damage our national security if information prematurely leaked.
Yeah, that's a good idea, but unless you make it MANDATORY that the gov't actually DO what the majority of the public has recommended, it won't amount to a hill of beans.
In order to exemplify the problems of use of the term 'national security', consider the quote by Sybil Edmonds (blog of May 22, 2009:
http://www.justacitizen.com/OpEd/Two%20Sides%20of%20The%20SameCoin-May22-09.htm
) relating to President B Obama's performance during his first 120 days in office:
...'So far The Obama administration has invoked the state secrets privilege in three cases in the first 100 days: Al Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Obama, Mohammed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, and Jewel v. NSA.
In defending the NSA illegal wiretapping, the Obama administration maintained that the State Secrets Privilege, the same draconian executive
privilege used and abused voraciously by the previous administration, required the dismissal of the case in courts. Not only has the new
administration continued the practice of invoking SSP to shield government wrongdoing, it has expanded its abuses much further. In the Al Haramain case, Obama’s Justice Department has threatened to have the FBI or federal marshals break into a judge's office and remove evidence already turned over in the case, according to the plaintiffs attorney. Even Bush didn't go this far so brazenly. In a well-written disgust provoking piece Jon Eisenberg, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, poses the question: “The president's lawyers continue to block access to information that could expose warrantless wiretapping. Is this change we can believe in?”
This is the same President, the same well-spoken showman, who went on record in 2007, during the campaign shenanigans, and said the following: “When I am president we won’t work in secret to avoid honoring our laws and Constitution.”---Presidential Candidate, Barack
Obama, 2007. Yes, this is the same President who had frowned upon and criticized the abuses and misuse of the State Secrets Privilege.'
For further discussion of problems of 'national security' and the fact that the MSM (controlled by corporate America and the banker fraudsters)
defines and controls the information which is permitted to be disseminated via newspapers and tv news , visit Sybil's blog discussion site:
http://www.123realchange.blogspot.com/
to learn more about the problems which have been created by the use of the catch-all phrase 'national security' to facilitate all sorts of cover-up and mismanagement of/by government controlers (both Executive and Congressional branches).
Obviously, this idea needs a little flushing out but the overall idea is sound. This is similar to what Mr. Obama proposed to at least start. Allowing the public to see what was going to be voted on.
This is a logical extension of the idea. With the communication tools available to the public today. Perhaps, we should all simply vote on the Federal budget(except military spending) like we do school budgets.
Wouldn't that keep our Federal governemnt accountable to We the People?
If they are going to propose funding unconstitutional spending and stack the Supreme Court with judges who interpret the US Constitution based on feeling instead of what the framers intended. Then this would allow We the People to have control of our Civil Society again.
Technology is one area the framers couldn't see all new advancements in. If they had - I suspect that they would have made one branch of government have a lot more direct supervision by the citizenry. Besides just voting for the representatives.
I suspect, they'd have loved the idea of the People voting for all or portions of the Federal budget.