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opengov

User Profile Image opengov
Member since : Jun-03-2009 (Verified)
0 Ideas, 9 Comments, 26 Votes

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opengov 9 months ago
As a corollary to another post requesting that the federal government to intervene to make local governments more open....Indiana state legislature generates a number of reports (such as financial impact reports) for each and every piece of legislation, and these reports are all public (to the best of my knowledge, anyways) and on their websites. If the federal government required that all states have the same level of openness as the federal congress, this would be a _step backwards_ for Indiana. It is more productive to use this forum to encourage the federal government to be as open as each individual state.
opengov 9 months ago
The bible says something about the mote in your brother's eye versus the log in your own. It's not just a warning against hypocrisy, it's just good management. The federal government needs to concern itself with failures of the federal government. When it interferes with local governments, its attempts will likely be short-sighted and not responsive to the actual localized needs of the citizenry. It would be nice if every localized government in the whole nation provided a high level of openness and accountability, but the federal government is simply not in a position to make it so.
opengov 9 months ago
If Republican Leader John Boehner _actually_ thought that this was a good idea, he is in a good position to personally force this public review period into existence without any change to the rules of congress. He gets his kicks championing this cause but in reality he is just as eager to rush through spending as any other politician. Beware politicians pretending to exert restraint on politicians, on either side of the aisle!
opengov 9 months ago
There is unfortunately a force stronger than principles. It is reality. Privacy is obsolete. Sad but true.
opengov 9 months ago
"Underway" my butt! Release them. Simple as that. A single executive order could enact this change, it could have been completed by midnight Jan 21.
opengov 9 months ago
#1 is stupid - a government directive to check out an anti-government website? Whatever. _That_ is unconstitutional.

#2 and #4 are the same, and congress already has the right to police its membership in this manner, but will never ever wield such a right in any way other than for the purposes of sensationalism (Joe McCarthy, anyone?)

#3 that'd be nice but our government is simply too big for this to be practical. It would be nice to shrink our government but with 300,000,000 citizens, even a minimalist government would involve a huge amount of legislative verbage.
opengov 9 months ago
Congressional pay is a red herring. The vast majority of money that passes through a congressman's hands is through campaign contributions. The actual payment directly to the congressman is generally insubstantial by comparison. And it is an infinitesimal piece of the pie of money that Washington DC spends. If anything, the government should give congressmen _more_ money to reduce their incentives to take bribes and so on.

What is needed is campaign reform and some regulation of the lobbying industry (for example, when hiring ex-congressmen, or family members of congressmen).

Yeah, it seems unfair that they get to set their own salary. But it simply doesn't matter, it's chump change compared to the real money that moves both inside a congressman's office and inside the capitol building.
opengov 9 months ago
This is a nice idea but there is unfortunately no simple semantic calculus to determine whether something is related to the core idea or not, nor in fact any way to discern the true core idea of a bill. Our government is large enough and that for the sake of efficiency our congress must often pass omnibus bills.

Basically, good idea, but not practical. A waste of time. So long as there is a will to circumvent the rule, the rule will be meaningless. The only effective remedy is for the people to pay attention to their congress critters, which is *ahem* unlikely.
opengov 9 months ago
His birth cert has already been released through several venues including the LA Times.