The One Secret Government CAN Keep: How They Spend Your Money

As I pointed out in my Boston Herald column today, it’s been 800 days now since Senate Democrats last passed a federal budget.

To put that in perspective, the last time Senate Democrats passed a budget, Ted Kennedy voted for it.

Washington has been operating without a real spending plan for virtually the entire Obama presidency, despite the fact that budgets are to Congress what toilets are to plumbers. And they often get the same results.

But finally, after months of being mocked for their cowardice and incompetence, the Democrat-controlled Senate has finally proposed a budget. Only—they’re not letting anyone else SEE it.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, with six Republican colleagues, sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid Thursday, urging him to unveil the Democrats’ budget proposal.

Last week, Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee, chaired by Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, announced that a budget proposal had been finalized and that it would be released as early as this week. So far, only the Democratic caucus has seen the proposal.

“We ask that you, as Majority Leader, call for the latest Democratic budget to immediately be made public, in all of its detail, and brought through the statutorily-mandated legislative process,” says the letter. “If our colleagues wish to raise taxes or propose spending cuts, the American people have a right to see that plan on paper.”

Yeah, you’d think that, wouldn’t ya? But you don’t understand how incumbent politicians protecting their political power work.  Check out this story from today’s Boston Globe-Democrat:

The $30.6 billion budget approved by the Legislature last week was negotiated almost entirely in secret, with six lawmakers meeting for 24 days of talks that were off limits to taxpayers. Debates, agendas, and even the times and locations of the meetings were held in strict confidence. No minutes were kept...

Massachusetts, the birthplace of American democracy, is one of fewer than 20 states with virtually no requirements that legislators discuss government business in public, according to a Globe review of open government data compiled by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. This state is one of about 10 in which the public does not have even limited rights to view legislators’ records.

Secret budgets and secret meetings to come up with secret documents that control how billions (in MA) or trillions (in Washington) of public tax dollars get spent. Why would you ever trust them?

My suggestion: DON’T. Every time you hear some hack talking about the need for “more revenue” or “tax fairness” or “cutting spending in the tax code” or whatever euphemism for “higher taxes” they come up with, remember that these are the same people who’ve been hiding and lying and scamming you all along. 

Don’t listen. Don’t debate.  Simply demand more cuts, reject all tax hikes, and force them to reveal how they’re really spending our money.