Government transparancy enters the 21st century

From Daily Kos:

Americans had a hard time finding out where their hard-earned tax dollars went. Until 2 days ago.

Now, thanks to USAspending.gov, a site created by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 by Tom Coburn and Barack Obama, anyone can discover the pockets of federal dollars. The site tracks contracts, grants, earmarks, and loans.

Check out the website for some interesting data. The Kos diary found

7 examples (contracts with KBR/Halliburton, Tom Delay's pork, no bid contracts with defense contractors and even the government of Canada, spending on guided missiles, maintenance of dams, and stranger things including flags, perfumes, and hand tools).

and there is much more shady funding out there — in addition to a lot, and I mean a lot, of pork. Naturally, data sensitive to national security (or "national security") is not included on the site. (I sort-of blogged about the reality of a website to track government spending a bit over a year ago.)

The politics of budgeting a pseudo-war

The "Global War on Terror" might now be financed directly by the US government. It has already cost well over $600 billion to the United States. The financing falls under so-called deficit spending. America's deficit is already gaping, in part due to the Keynesian economic policies of the current military industrial system, as this Harper's article talked about:

KEY JUDGMENTS
The United States remains, for the moment, the most powerful nation in history, but it faces a violent contradiction between its long republican tradition and its more recent imperial ambitions.

The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.

Several factors, however, indicate that this course will be a brief one, which most likely will end in economic and political collapse.

Military Keynesianism: The imperial project is expensive. The flow of the nation's wealth—from taxpayers and (increasingly) foreign lenders through the government to military contractors and (decreasingly) back to the taxpayers—has created a form of “military Keynesianism,” in which the domestic economy requires sustained military ambition in order to avoid recession or collapse.

The Unitary Presidency: Sustained military ambition is inherently anti-republican, in that it tends to concentrate power in the executive branch. In the United States, President George W. Bush subscribes to an esoteric interpretation of the Constitution called the theory of the unitary executive, which holds, in effect, that the president has the authority to ignore the separation of powers written into the Constitution, creating a feedback loop in which permanent war and the unitary presidency are mutually reinforcing.

Failed Checks on Executive Ambition: The U.S. legislature and judiciary appear to be incapable of restraining the president and therefore restraining imperial ambition. Direct opposition from the people, in the form of democratic action or violent uprising, is unlikely because the television and print media have by and large found it unprofitable to inform the public about the actions of the country's leaders. Nor is it likely that the military will attempt to take over the executive branch by way of a coup.

Bankruptcy and Collapse: Confronted by the limits of its own vast but nonetheless finite financial resources and lacking the political check on spending provided by a functioning democracy, the United States will within a very short time face financial or even political collapse at home and a significantly diminished ability to project force abroad.

The deficit continues to grow wider, from trade and massive government spending. While more taxes isn't necessarily a bad thing (a small cost to many equals a large amount of money for government expenditures, which many fail to comprehend a small tax hike would barely affect them) it is how the money is spend that ultimately matters. A more transparent, streamlined spending framework should be put in place, similar to that of the Nordic welfare system.

Instead of having so many bureaucratic hoops and loopholes, more checks are needed. At the same time money should be able to go directly to where it is needed. This is a daunting task for a government so large and powerful as the American government, but it is feasible in the long run. Like with any reform, however, it needs a starting point in order to get the ball rolling. Basing the economy on a military-industrial complex system is dangerous in more ways than one. It increases a nation's militarism, thus crumbling aspects of its democracy, and restricts the economic base of said nation. Open government and good economics often go hand in hand.

More spending vetoes in the works?

White House: more spending on education and health care is bad — bad enough to warrant a rarely-used veto. Another great move by the Bush administration... The Democrats in Congress want to increase the federal budget by about $20 billion. Not it's the increase that's good — because it isn't — but what they hope to increase are the same programs the White House wished to decrease in the last budget it proposed: domestic programs like education and healthcare. Neither branch's version of the fiscal year 2008 budget is perfect, and both have their strengths.

The new Iraq war funding compromise bill may also be vetoed by the president. This bill is a revised vision of the funding bill proposed by Congress, and vetoed by the president (in what was only his second veto ever), earlier this month. Both have been locking horns more than ever ever since.

On a related note, largely due to the wrangling over the mess that is Iraq, Congress and the White House both have about the same (low) approval rating by the American public — in the 30%s.

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Unbalancing the budget

Bush calls this cutting and balancing the federal budget? By lessening the over-inflated big government spending, I think not. No doubt the Iraq war dominates the budget, but still...

Washington Post:

President Bush sent to Congress a $2.9 trillion budget plan that would dramatically increase military spending -- including an extra $245 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- but squeeze federal health care programs and most domestic agencies to achieve his goal of eliminating the deficit by 2012.

The proposal seeks to make permanent the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, costing the Treasury an additional $374 billion over five years. And it would slice nearly $96 billion over five years from Medicare and Medicaid, the government's health care programs for the poor and the elderly. The proposal would also cut spending at eight federal agencies -- including the education, environment and interior departments -- to below fiscal 2006 levels.

Bush said his budget proposal "shows we can balance the budget in five years without raising taxes." The budget is "realistic, it's achievable and it's got good reforms in it," he said.

Credit: Washington Post

The projected five-year cost of extending Bush's tax cuts comes on top of $1.1 trillion that the cuts have already cost since 2001.

The proposed budget asks Congress for nearly $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in fiscal 2007 -- on top of $70 billion already provided -- and $145 billion for fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1. For fiscal 2009, there is a forecast of $50 billion, with no funding projections beyond that year.

I think it is pretty easy to 'balance the budget' if you cut a chunk of spending out. Too bad that chunk had to be important. It's funny that this is the president calling on Congress to be responsible with the budget. These tax cuts have been worthless, helped people who really don't need the financial help, and are overall a horrible way of gaining political capital when people are so gloomy over the economy anyways. One small group of unemployed people can make more of a poltical difference than a large group of political apathetics (of whom there are far too many in the US).

Decreasing domestic spending and important programs like those in the health care sector and social security is certainly not a wise move on behalf of this militaristic White House. This is a trend that has continued ever since this president took office — and he seems to be proud of it. What I find amazing is that the American people have OKed Bush's large defense spending and lack of attention to domestic issues, even those relating to national security (on the domesitc front)! May I point out that the Democrat's win last November was not only — contrary to many accounts — because of Iraq, but the economy, of all things, was a huge factor in what party people voted for according to exit polls. Going further this shows that not only do the vast majority of politicians vote by party lines, but even the people they represent, the voting population, do. There is also the issue of the US economy not actually being as bad as many seem to think. I have doubts over whether the Dems would have won if people had not voted for their individual candidate, judging them on their merits, and not what party they were of. I guess that's what happens in a two party system more than in a system allowing farer political representation for groups and even ideologies.

For more on President Bush's FY 2008 budget, see the US government's OMB website. Keep in mind everything from Bush's "war on terror" spending to his social security policy to his education cop-out stance.

Update: One hope for government spending transparency lies in the upcoming creation of a website that allows the public to see where their tax dollars are going. It'll be fun to call politicians — whomever they may be — on their rhetoric about the budget and spending. Of course it will also be frustrating to see Bush isn't lying too much about the earmarking Congress does, not that he doesn't prohibit pork barrel spending (he wants the people to believe that he is doing the opposite of what he is actually doing!).

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