by Steve Cook

Preamble

This is the fourth essay in this series. It features my ongoing effort to come up with a Manifesto for an honest government designed and run for  all the People.

Modern government presents many iniquities that give people a hard time. Whilst a perfect government may well be an unobtainable absolute and eternal vigilance will always be vital, much can be done to remove those iniquities from the lives of good people and thus render their existence a good deal more tolerable. What is required is the will to do it and a broad agreement as to what, specifically, must be done about it.

My effort to summarise “what can be done about it” into a manifesto that can be broadly agreed upon as desirable has been helped simply by observing  a particular iniquity and thinking up a policy to get rid of it.

Previously, for instance, I looked at the iniquities of taxation and debt.

In this essay I want to take up the iniquity of false accounting whereby the People are largely in the dark as to where and how their money, extracted from them by government, is  spent, whose pocket it winds up in and so forth.

In subsequent articles I’ll take up other iniquities in no particular order but just as they present themselves or as they come to my attention.

When we run out of iniquities to address, then I’ll review the whole thing, tidy it up and present it in a finished manifesto.

And while I think of it, as accounting and money flows are part of the broad subject called “economics”, it would be good to clarify a couple of definitions. In Part Three I cleared up what money is so in this essay let’s get down to basic definitions of economics:

The word “economics” is derived from a Greek word “oikonomia” which means “household management” or “management of house affairs” i.e., how people earn income and resources and how they spend them on their necessities, comforts and luxuries.

The broad subject of economics covers the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of goods and services by and among human beings and their groups and communities.

And now to the main subject under consideration.

BASIC PRINCIPLES:

1. The People have an inalienable right to know where and how their government spends their money. The government has a duty to account accurately for all its income and expenditures, reserves, deficits and surpluses.
2. False/fraudulent accounting by government, which especially includes the hiding  of expenditures, is a crime against the People.
3. The notion that it is “all right” for the government or any section, department or official thereof to make false reports  or to withhold information from the People is hereby cancelled and any effort so to do shall be regarded as an indicator of hidden wrongdoing of greater or lesser magnitude, which shall require a full and open police investigation.

Accordingly, it shall be embodied in law (with penalties for violation by those found culpable) that the government may not spend money on things for which it has no mandate to spend money on.

It is understood that honest errors can occur and these (where honest) should not be penalised but the erroneous expenditure must not be withheld when the government reports its expenditures.

It is also understood that emergencies can occur that may require the allocation of funds but again this must be clearly shown.

Emergencies occur when there is a failure to predict, for which those in government must take responsibility. Where emergencies require sustained departures from the government’s mandate, the government must present a revised mandate to the People via a fresh  election.

It shall be passed into law that the government MUST provide for the People a full Report each quarter of how much it spent on what, including money sent abroad as aid and the payment of past debts.  ALL expenditure must be accounted for and the statement of accounts published so that any citizen may view it.

It shall be a punishable offence for any person to hide or falsify any public expenditure. The money that must be accounted for in full is all money raised through the purchase tax, tolls and charges and new money spent into circulation (see earlier article).

As covered in the earlier discussion, the government shall not be permitted to borrow but is of course bound to honour past debts still outstanding where such lending to previous governments was not fraudulent.

Any citizen or body of citizens may inspect the government’s statement of accounts for accuracy and the government shall be obliged to answer honestly and in full any question or query received from any citizen or citizens’ group.

The  Quarterly Financial Report shall be collated and published by the Treasury, which shall be charged with the legal responsibility to  keep the nation accurately and honestly informed as to what is being done with its money.

Each Report shall include:

1. how much revenue was received
2. how much was spent and on what (broad categories such as “education”, ‘transport”, “health”, “aid and other disbursements to foreign entities” etc.)
3. how much was left over and allocated to Reserves.
4. how much is currently in Reserves.

MORE TO FOLLOW

PREVIOUS ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES

PART ONE – PEOPLE’S MANIFESTO

PART TWO – FIRST, SOME BASIC PRINCIPLES

PART THREE  – REMOVING THE BURDENS OF TAX AND DEBT

YA GOTTA PRODUCE! BACK TO BASICS

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Please visit Steve Cook

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