Like the rest of us, Washington will be (properly) getting back to work today and various members of Congress will be meeting with President-elect Obama as he starts the passage of a massive economic stimulus package.
We don’t yet know the exact amount of the package but it seems like it will be in the range of $700-$850 billion. We also are not at all clear about how Obama and his team are suggesting that the money be spent and I am sure that there will be much debate over the next few weeks about the importance of the public being able to scrutinize what is included in the legislation.
I am not an economist and can’t with any authority tell you whether creating the stimulus package is the right approach to helping the economy emerge from its dire position, although it sounds sensible to me.
What I do know, is the passing of any legislation provides a tremendous opportunity for Congress to oblige federal, state and local government agencies to put in place mechanisms to make them completely transparent about how they spend their money. In my opinion this is even more important than the public scrutinizing the legislation. We must have the ability to hold government agencies at all levels accountable as to how they spend this money and how they choose contractors to execute on their plans. By doing so these same agencies will then have tools in place to be transparent and open about their ordinary spending. I believe that most government executives have no problem about being transparent but they need to be pushed to create the infrastructure to make it happen.
Old ways can be changed when major events take place. The passing of the economic stimulus package is such an event and it will be a travesty if its passing is not used to help enforce openness and transparency. This is some of the change that we are looking for from President-elect Obama.
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