Opaque Transparency
Colorado's state treasurer, Cary Kennedy, is on the hot seat. When running for
office, he promised to make the state's spending more transparent. He has not
followed through.
In a different age, such dilatoriness might have been overlooked. Today, the
very medium that makes it easy to report what is happening with taxpayers'
money, the Internet, also makes it easy to pressure delinquent officials.
There are websites. The one calling Kennedy to account is a blog called
Colorado Spending Transparency. Or COST.
COST recalls that during his 2006 campaign for Colorado State Treasurer,
Kennedy observed that when you buy groceries, the receipt shows what you
bought. Kennedy, too, he said, would “show you where your money goes.”
Colorado does post its annual budget online. But the COST blog wants a
detailed, searchable database, as fifteen other states have provided.
Representative Don Marostica, who also championed transparency in his 2006
campaign, introduced a bill to require such online itemizing. The bill never
made it out of committee. Marostica had planned to re-introduce the bill until
Governor Ritter stated in a recent speech that he would work with Treasurer
Kennedy and others to put the state's checkbook online.
COST says doing this will only reveal what the state paid, not necessarily what
it paid FOR. COST wants the whole story. And will keep pressing until it gets
it.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Paul Jacob is President of Citizens in Charge and the Citizens in Charge
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