At an Education Appropriations Committee Meeting this morning, State Rep. Paul Stam asked members of the OSBM and Fiscal Research Division to end a tradition of having legislators make budget decisions “blindly.” As it stands now, many explanatory budget documents, such as money reports and committee reports, often fail to include any mention of a program’s current appropriation. Instead, they only show the change in appropriations, making it difficult to determine just how much money the program or agency was getting from the state without making special requests. This practice of making budget decisions with incomplete information generally leads to bigger government.
Stam suggested that future appropriations documents show the current appropriations of programs along with the recommended changes, including any changes made by administrators of the programs during the fiscal year.
Just imagine–legislators knowing the full amount of state-financed programs before legislating or commenting on them. This sort of thing must be stopped, before it catches on! I mean, what’s next, full government financial transparency? And you know where that could lead–to honest, limited government! The horror, the horror!
Maybe what we need is a protest (with all the usual suspects) before this transparency thing catches on.
