E!! The True Conservative Story™

If you can stomach it, Americans for Tax Reform has a recap of all the major fiscal and tax-related events since Inauguration Day.

Title:  Obama’s First 100 Days:  Higher Spending. More Debt. New Taxes. Broken Promises.

Yep, that about sums it up.

Just a snippet:

Day 1 — January 20: In his Inaugural address, President Obama makes a noteworthy commitment to the American taxpayer:
 
“And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.”

Or two:

Day 41 — March 1: The Obama administration foreshadows another broken promise when Peter Orszag, appearing on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, claims the 8,000 earmarks in the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 are “last year’s business. We just need to move on.” The statement by Orszag in not consistent with Obama’s campaign promise made in the first presidential debate:
 
“And, absolutely, we need earmark reform. And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.” (Sept. 26, 2008. First Presidential Debate, Oxford, Miss.)

RTWT.

Las Vegas Sun political analyst John Ralston nails one, but good.

I challenge you to read every single word.  Then, if you live in Nevada, take a moment to feel some deep-seated disgust at the passing of a neutered campaign finance disclosure bill that won’t even kick in until 2011.  Then contact your Assembly representative to demand that they give the bill’s balls back (and perhaps lend a pair to GOP Assemblyman James Settelmeyer, whose objections against the measure seem pretty wimpy).

And while you’re at it, contact Sec. of State Ross Miller’s office to suggest that they make online filing easier.  Chuck Muth said the following about the process as it exists now:

I have a PAC (political action committee) and once tried filing my [financial report] online.  And I gotta tell you, it was a royal pain in the you-know-what.  The process set up by the Secretary of State’s office is decidedly not user-friendly and is unduly complicated to navigate and complete.  No wonder so many candidates, PACs, and ballot advocacy groups opt to simply fill out the forms by hand.
 
Miller is on the right track pushing for online reporting, but he also needs to get his own house in order. It shouldn’t be too difficult to allow campaigns using, say, Quickbooks, to import the required information directly into the campaign reporting system at the SoS’s office instead of having to type it out separately a second time. 

Timely online transparency should be a requirement not only for campaign finance reporting, but for all publicly funded agencies and organizations.  It’s something we can all agree on – or should.

Subject link:  Check out the Nevada Project at Sunshine Review.

Sunshine Review, a wiki project that empowers citizens to share information with one another about their local government(s), has given every state a “transparency rating.”  The rating  is based on whether or not they have websites that provide transparency and how much information the website provides. 

Categories are:  budgets, public meeting minutes, permits and zoning, elected officials, audits, contracts, lobbying, public records, and taxes.

Arizona was #1.  Vermont was #50.  Nevada is #31.  Here are all the rankings:

http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/County_websites%2C_state-by-state_rankings#Comparison_of_county_websites_by_state

This and other similar projects are part of a grassroots push for full online transparency in every county across the nation.  I fully support the cause.