Tracking Government Waste—There’s an App for That By Tom Coburn
http://www.wsj.com/articles/tracking-government-wastetheres-an-app-for-that-1444169479
“The goal of American Transparency’s project, Open the Books, is to put every dime of government spending—on all levels—online, in real time. It’s an ambitious and audacious mission to map government’s role in our lives.”
Dr. Coburn, a former U.S. senator from Oklahoma, is the honorary chairman of American Transparency.
Citizen activists can now monitor online how elected federal and state officials are spending their money.
With the rise of supposed outsider candidates, pundits are calling the coming presidential election a referendum on the establishment. They’re missing a more profound story, which is the rise of new elites. These are the citizen activists using technology to reshape the status quo in ways neither the traditional establishment nor today’s antiestablishment pretenders understand.
The rise of citizen activism became apparent to me during the GOP’s struggle over earmarks. As a member of the House of Representatives, where I served from 1995 to 2001, I had fought against earmarks unsuccessfully. By the time I was elected to the Senate in 2004, I was confident that a David vs. Goliath strategy would succeed.
While the establishment thought we were outgunned, the balance of power had shifted. We had the support of the “blogosphere”—an army of citizen journalists. Anyone with a laptop could be an investigative reporter and publish his or her findings. In the end we were nimbler and more effective than the lethargic, pork-addicted congressional appropriators.
No fight better illustrated the power of these elites more than the debate about the “Bridge to Nowhere” earmark. On Oct. 21, 2005, I offered an amendment to eliminate the bridge planned for Ketchikan, Alaska. We lost the vote 15-82 in the Senate but won the argument among the electorate. Thanks to the public outcry expressed through the blogosphere the vote put earmarks on the road to extinction. Congress banned them in 2010.
The power of these new elites in action made me want to pave the way for more. Not long after the bridge vote I teamed up with a freshman senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who was eager to burnish his bipartisan credentials around “good government” initiatives.
The law we helped pass in 2006, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, aka “ Google Your Government,” was an important marker in establishing transparency as a new norm in American politics. The bill put all federal spending online for any citizen to search.
The legislation also helped launch new transparency organizations. I serve as the honorary chairman of one, American Transparency. Adam Andrzejewski, the group’s founder, says the federal law empowered citizen activists to ask state and local officials, “If the federal government can open its books, why can’t you?”
The goal of American Transparency’s project, Open the Books, is to put every dime of government spending—on all levels—online, in real time. It’s an ambitious and audacious mission to map government’s role in our lives.
On Oct. 1, an updated version of our free Open the Books mobile app was released. Now it includes federal spending and state spending for the 16 most populous states (excluding California and North Carolina). Fifty-five percent of America’s population can now for the first time search state spending from their smartphone—including the salaries of all government employees in 34,000 municipal governments.
I learned in Washington that identifying specific examples of waste and incompetence is the best way to bring about real change, and not just make noise. And Open the Books activists are already uncovering many examples of spending that’s questionable—or worse. A few examples:
• In Lyons Township, Ill., the treasurer of a school district whose pay had surreptitiously spiked to $295,000 from $163,000 in one year was questioned by local citizens and then indicted by the Cook County State’s Attorney. He’s now serving nine years in jail.
• Federal “small business” loans worth $200 million flowed to private country clubs across the nation, including golf clubs, swim clubs, tennis clubs, gun clubs and beach clubs. This exposure has helped create a debate over the proper role of the Small Business Administration.
• During the 2014 Veterans Affairs scandal, thousands of veterans weren’t able get a doctor’s appointment—the cooked appointment books showed no wait times—and more than 56,000 “performance” bonuses flowed to VA employees, doctors and managers. Our 2015 updated numbers show that performance bonuses are flowing virtually unabated, and less than one in 12 new hires is a doctor.
• The Environmental Protection Agency was found to have spent $715 million since 2006 on its Criminal Enforcement Program, including purchases of guns and ammunition up to 300mm, body armor, camouflage and deceptive equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar, night vision, and joint “policing” projects with Homeland Security.
The American people are rightfully clamoring for dramatic change in Washington. That won’t come through political showmanship—but it may come through a galvanized and vigilant citizenry monitoring how elected officials are spending their money.
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