Would Personal Accountability Be Helpful to Reduce the Deficit?

Question

What if the Congressional Budget Office were tasked with creating an annual report, with help from the General Accounting Office, of the appropriations that can fairly be attributed to the Yea votes of individual Senators and Congresspersons?

This would be a list of names from the biggest spenders to the smallest spenders with the approximate amount spent in a column to the right of each name. So it would be about a five page report, once a year.

The problem now is that we have 635 sailors on shore leave all using the same credit card, and each sailor gets full praise and high honors for the pork they bring home to their districts.

They get full recognition for the pork brought home -- the bacon brought back to the district's voters, but they get absolutely no individual accountability for the tax dollars that they individually have voted to expend.

We know what the authorization bills authorize and what the appropriations bills appropriate. And we know who votes Yea for those bills -- it's electronically recorded. So, after the double counting is purged out, we should be able to tell how much each member of Congress/Senate is responsible for spending.

With that list in hand, the constituents in the district can look at the pork brought home, can calculate their own long-term share of the funds spent in terms of tax dollars, and they can figure out if the pork was worth it.

Alternatively, they may decide that they don't want any of their Representatives of Senators to be in the top quartile or top half of the big spenders list. They will vote out of office anybody who appears in such a position no matter how much pork the person brings home.

Or, maybe they will vote out the big spenders except if they bring home amazing huge amounts of pork, just 25 huge government projects for every city, and 5 for every village in the state, plus two or three useless airports, for every town, named after the politicians -- like the Murtha Airport -- or maybe bridges to nowhere -- like the Sarah Palin bridge.

I'm suggesting that sunlight is the best path to national solventcy and that anonymity is the runaway train that has given rise to our current crisis.

As long as anonymity rules the day, and nobody in Congress is individually accountable, then all the big pork bringers always get re-elected. That creates a positive feedback cycle. The number of big spenders in Congress goes up every election, until finally every single person in Congress is the biggest spender possible at all times (except Judd Gregg and Ron Paul).

Darwin understood how positive feedback alters species. Congress is packed with greedy-beaked birds (and Byrds) because of well understood Darwinist principles. The "fittest"to be re-elected, are actually the most unfit because they are wrecking the country. Dodos run amuk, the great stampede, Thelma and Louise in their Dodo-Mobile driving over the cliff.

Personal accountability --- a 5 page report once a year -- is that sooooooo hard ---- sooooooo imposible -- do we need Albert Einstein here to tell us it would be helpful?

Know the truth, and the truth will keep you solvent.

Answer 1

Pork is not the problem it is the symptom, pork accounts for only a very small fraction of the federal budget. The problem is that voters want more than the are willing to pay for, and politicians have been willing to accommodate them,by bowwowing the money. Even the people who complain about spending want the programs that benefit them protected from budget cuts.

Answer 2

Personal accountability for congress isn't so much the issue. It's personal accountability for the public. Today nearly half of all US households pay no income tax. This means that when they encourage Congress to spend more money, there is no incremental cost to them. It's like going to dinner where someone else is picking up the tab. Steak AND lobster? Why not!

Answer 3

surely I communicate approximately very own accountability. and that i do no longer force a hummer, or communicate on my palm pilot, or vote against social democrats, or get a social risk-free practices verify each and each month... i think of very own accountability is the final gadget for making our selections in life be ones that do the smallest quantity of injury to others. very own accountability is one gadget that could carry approximately integrity and accountability. i'm perplexed approximately why this could be a bad undertaking?!