Fraud and Investigations

Got an email from a person who challenged me to investigate the fraud in the farm loan program.  It wasn't sent as a comment, so I won't be more specific, and indeed it was not specific in its allegations.  I would have hoped that any regular reader of the blog, all X of them, would have inferred I'm retired and just bloviating these days; any investigations, particularly of farm loans which is an area I never was directly involved with, are out of the question.


But for anyone who believes there's fraud and abuse going on, here's the OIG site for reporting.  Because the OIG types are bureaucrats, they'd love to have a nice juicy case of fraud to boast of investigating, so go ahead and make their day.

Transparency in Government--State and Local

Do you know that building codes and fire safety codes and similar material are not available for free?  I'd like to see that changed.

The Learning Curve in Transparency

This Post article the other day shows the Obama Administration learning some lessons on transparency, particularly the need for validity checks on data entry and error correction routines.

Sunlight and Obama

I don't think it's a causal relationship, more a matter of riding the wave, but you still have to give Obama credit for participating in the open government/transparency movement. I say this as today the AP pointed out some problems in the recovery Act data--in some cases too many jobs were claimed. The White House has immediately fired back. And I'd refer to my rule about learning, it's still a learning curve.

But in the broader context we're developing the expectation, fed by Obama administration actions and the initiatives of many good government types, that government data will be open, accessible, manipulable, and correct.  That's a major step forward.  If you believe, as I do, the government is a congeries of organizations of people, some of which are efficient and effective and some are not, then having good data available to all will identify which are which.  In the long run that's very important--one big step to restoring and maintaining public confidence in government.

Transparency in Government--Taxes

Via Kevin Drum here's a discussion of our past history in revealing tax information. I might be persuadable of the advantages of making all tax data accessible on-line (see the last part of the document).