Steve Richards argues with his typical eloquence for higher public spending today. Unsurprisingly, I disagree with him. But, intriguingly, he endorses an idea that in the medium term would, I think, be incredibly effective in cutting down the size of the state.
Steve writes:
“The shadow Chancellor, George Osborne has proposed the equivalent of America’s Federal Spending Transparency Act that enables US taxpayers to scrutinise online every item of federal government spending of more than $50,000. He has promised that anyone in the UK will be able to find out online, ‘where their taxes are being spent and use this information to hold the government to account’.
This is a good idea. Nearly always such massive sums are highlighted in debates about public spending in which the arguments are close to meaningless for most people. But if the users of services are able to track how their money is being spent on specific services, I suspect that, again, minds would be focused in Whitehall and beyond.”
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