I think if we had a crystal-clear/omniscient view of the wastage that goes on in various governments, we'd be collectively appalled.
I think the opposite. Most people already believe the government is incredibly wasteful, there's a much greater opportunity in highlighting where it surprisingly efficient. This will serve to blow up many ideological truisms.
As the responsibility for spending money is removed from the individual, efficiency plummets. Government jobs are the ultimate in a lack of accountability. Voters don't have the visibility to see what politicians and other government workers spend money on. The one entity that should effectively provide oversight on how the government spends our money is the government itself - and they're loathe to limit their own power. Then on top of all that, even voters aren't spending their own money when they make voting decisions. They're mostly rationalizing that their voting decisions are affecting the other guy, like "the rich".
We seem to know very different people.
While it is true that the market has a tighter feedback loop, that does not ensure good individual decisions. It just means that individuals are punished for bad decisions and rewarded for good decisions quickly.
This is a nice feature of the market but that doesn't mean that it is the only system that can have tight feedback loops. Look at the military for a good example of a non-market structure that has a tight feedback loop and, generally, does very well outside of the market system.
The government may lack some features of the market that doesn't mean that it cannot be as accountable. Good data and analysis for the people is one nice step toward greater government accountability.
It's all relative.
> Look at the military for a good example of a non-market structure that has a tight feedback loop and, generally, does very well outside of the market system.
The military has some meritocratic elements, but then again it's hugely wasteful: http://fortune.com/2015/08/14/f-35-joint-strike-fighter/
> The government may lack some features of the market that doesn't mean that it cannot be as accountable
And how are the accountability mechanisms going to be implemented? Obviously the vote doesn't work. Data might be slightly helpful, but people don't vote based on data. Look at this Trump election. It was hardly a data driven result. Really the main problem is that voters aren't very accountable for their decisions. Voting is just a tribal team sport thing.
EconTalk: Vanessa Williamson on Taxes and Read My Lips https://overcast.fm/+JDN9N7o
Except for some things like certain national security parts that are specifically protected by law from detailed disclosure, federal, state, and most local governments make and publish those, though they aren't in the form of spreadsheets, and they aren't consolidated into a single national combined publication.
for example, would they report on the purchase of Stingrays? License plate scanners that the municipalities 'require' private companies to install?
(don't forget the counties!)
The reason that cannot work is that when you get below the state level, you're dealing with governments that might or might not have enough money and motivation to do proper accounting, staffed by people who might or might not have actually gone to college.
Mandating they contribute to the "national spreadsheet" would represent an unprecedented imposition on local governments. Not that it's necessarily a bad idea, but I'm guessing it's unconstitutional if it comes from the federal government.
Because of state and federal funding rules, local governments are generally not only already providing detailed public accountings in documents that nobody bothers to read, but also providing detailed reports of their spending and revenue to state and federal authorities (who periodically audit parts of them) as a condition of basic funding. They absolutely can and do track income and expenses at very fine levels, and report them with very fine breakdowns (often different breakdowns of the same spending representing different control agencies demands.)
The smaller you are, the more "downhill" you are from the folks making the important regulations, and the more you're required to adhere to strict and closely monitored books. (Corruption still happens, of course, but at least there are numbers that add together and some form of reasonable audit trail for financial events. And don't get me started about whether or not good accounting principles have anything at all to do with good governance)
ADD: Here's a link for reference: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/us-army-audit-account...
(I could also tell personal stories from my time with the federal government, and there are plenty more links to find for those interested. The point is that more political power and money movement, at least in the states, usually is associated with fewer and less reliable financial controls, which is counter-intuitive)
But they're still required to file everything properly, no matter how complex their personal/business taxes get.
That's one local government of tens of thousands. I'd be less optimistic about, say, a rural county in West Virginia, or something like that, having anything like proper financial records and the motivation to provide them.
The kind of governments I'm skeptical about aren't hugely important for a top-down analysis of the country's finances simply because they're financially the least wealthy. What I'm surprised about is how optimistic everyone is about the nation's recordkeeping and how everyone assumes that every government works roughly the same way. I've heard horror stories about counties that cannot even keep track of who owns what land/mineral rights, and sometimes have their own corrupt reasons for not trying very hard. The world will need to change before some of those places are motivated to improve.
I get the impression there are swaths of the HackerNews audience who have no idea how "the other half" lives in places outside of the major urban centres.
I know that sounds like a cop-out but if you think about it, it makes sense that the government has to classify some things.
The question is where does the line get drawn. I agree it's too far to one side right now but the extreme you suggest is far far on the other extreme.
This is absolutely not the case. Sure there are some classified programs but the majority of government spending and money flows should be 100% transparent.
It's not because there is some degree of corruption and those involved wish to evade accountability.
Agreed. But that wasn't what the parent was suggesting and not what I was arguing against.