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The problem with "radical transparency"is that the worst money-wasters get to hide behind confidentiality in the name of security: 1. Counter-terrorism spendin
by Zigurd 10y ago
The problem with "radical transparency"is that the worst money-wasters get to hide behind confidentiality in the name of security:
1. Counter-terrorism spending, which wastes money protecting backwaters no terrorist has even heard of
2. The Drug War and it's army of informants
3. Seizures of property and cash, dimensions currently unknown
4. A Cold War-sized military in a post-Cold War world
5. The prison-industrial complex
Those are all discretionary spending. And those are all conservatives' favorites. And they all get wrapped in "we can't be transparent, because drug lords and terrorists!"
- marcosdumay 10y agoAt a minimum, transparency lets you say "hey, we do all that stuff with this $, why is there all that extra $$$$ spent there where we can't see?"
- Zigurd 10y agoSure. But if you look at other comments on this thread, there are arguments for fine-grained transparency for, for example, school spending, or social program spending. The objection to that is that it's grist for the outrage mill: "How DARE they spend money on LGBT issues!" Radical transparency would be better supportable if it did not exclude the secret policeman's budget.