LESS GOVERNMENT
Transparency

As a conservative I’m always being accused of wanting to do away with government.
A couple of things up front. My basic ideas.
I think government is too big
I think government is necessary.
Government is the means through which the people of this country manage to live together and thrive and seek those unalienable rights they initially enumerated in the Declaration they wrote being desirous of a government to protect those rights.
As I tried to point out in my blog “visions” two competing groups compromised with each other in the writing of the Constitution.
Constrained=Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Federalist papers, Hamilton and Adams
Unconstrained=Thomas Paine, Godwin, Rousseau, Jefferson, Condorce
The Constitution was written as a compromise between these two ideas and the result was a set of checks and balances.
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With that said, I favor things that I believe will lead to better leaner more efficient government. Anything that cuts down on duplicitous red tape. Anything that private companies can do vs. the government I say let them. I think anything that allows individual voters to see the facts of how the government actually works will benefit all.
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The current catch phrase for one tool to help accomplish this is “Transparency” How do we do this?? Let us look at a model that works. That is the free enterprise model. I’m talking here of Google, Fed-ex and the like. The time is now to put the government into the 21 Century. Set things up with “access of the citizenry” as the goal. Not only after the fact but so that the Citizenry can see the facts before a bill is voted on allowing informed input from the Citizenry vs. rhetoric. Imagine if Google could set and organize all of the information in the government. Their search engines would enable the Citizenry at a single click to search all relevant facts on a bill up for consideration. Gee even the congressmen could too. We could even end up with an informed Congress. And an informed Citizenry.. Below is from Jack’s Blog. Jack Hoogendyke is in the process of running for the US Senate.
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http://coreprinciples.blogspot.com/
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Next is his petition to run site if you feel so inclined.
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http://jackformichigan.org/petitions/
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Getting back to my stuff. Below is from his blog site about “Transparency”
You can see where I get some of my ideas. Lol
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Thursday, April 10, 2008
Transparency Update
HB5137 was introduced last August. It requires the state to put all expenditures on a searchable database. It has been sitting in the House Oversight Committee ever since. Yesterday, I moved to discharge the bill from the committee to the House floor. The motion passed. The floor leader immediately moved to send the bill to the Appropriations Committee.The only reason (excuse) we have heard from House "leadership" and the Governor are that it costs too much to implement. In fact, the State Department of Information Technology, a department with a $37 million budget and over 1500 employees, sent a letter that says it could cost up to $150 million to implement this for Michigan Government! While DIT makes that outrageous claim:
Kansas and Missouri (www.mapyourtaxes.mo.gov) have done it within existing budget. No additional expense.
Google has written to each state informing them that they are willing to partner with governmental agencies to implement searchable database technology.
The Texas state comptroller has written in a letter to Americans for Tax Reform that her state has saved millions of dollars as a result of transparency implementation. They have found duplicate contracts and have consolidated functions or purchasing practices.
The federal government has offered their software, which was used to create a website for the $3 trillion budget, to the states as open source software, FREE OF CHARGE!
There can only be one explanation for the Governor and Dem leadership's refusal to move this bill, they are hiding millions of dollars in waste and mismanagement.
Posted by Jack Hoogendyk at 1:36 PM 0 comments
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Hoogendyke and Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox joining forces on this
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http://www.nbc25online.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=115431
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Terri Lynn Land our Secretary of State also is a fan of “Transparency” in her department.
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Ralph Nader and Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox agree!!!! oho no Mr. Bill
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http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1206166518296720.xml&coll=6
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In my opinion: if anything should be nonpartisan it should be this. If any state needs “Transparency” to be able to see where the money goes it is Michigan.
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Regards, Live Dangerously
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PS. On the lighter side.
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http://heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22931&CFID=2354521&CFTOKEN=24122508
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