Rick Lowe

If you've been reading this blog for a while you know one of my pet peeves is government spending and when I raise the subject around politicos of any stripe (PLP, FNM etc) or Civil Servants, I'm usually asked, in a less than complimentary tone, "well where would you cut spending?" as if the suggestion to curb spending is the problem.

"…it's immoral for governments to think that when they borrow and spend the country into the abyss, they can simply raise taxes to compensate without first determining how they can cut back on spending."

Seems to me it should be a bipartisan committee of Parliament that scrutinizes the budget to seek ways to spend less or cut back on waste, possibly utilizing the reports of the Auditor General. Heck, the Auditor General should be a member of the committee.

But when the Auditor General says his personal goal is transparency while promoting good governance and making sure tax dollars are spent in an economic, efficient and effective manner, yet can't get the reports posted on his departments web site, maybe that's an indication of why our Civil Service and Parliament are less than accountable with our tax dollars?

One way to make the entire system more accountable is to move the Government's accounting to Double Entry Bookkeeping with income and profit and loss statements like businesses prepare for their records.

In the final, the Government and Civil Service cannot continue spending the way they do without more accountability to help keep them in check.

In fact, it's immoral for governments to think that when they borrow and spend the country into the abyss, they can simply raise taxes to compensate without first determining how they can cut back on spending.

While we all supposedly have a collective responsibility to the National Debt, surely the political class must step up to the plate and become more accountable with how they spend our tax dollars?