It seems Sens. Cuccinelli and Peterson have run into a roadblock on their way to greater budgetary transparency. In his newsletter, and in his inimitable style, Ken shows us that at least one of his Senate colleagues, Sen. Edd Houck, thinks we’ve got all the transparency we need right now, thank you:
In our debate on the bill, he said that he doesn’t see any problem with how open our government information is today. Now, remember, Sen. Houck is a Senate Budget Conferee! He has been in the Senate for over 25 years and he has Finance Committee staff at his disposal for his own self-education on budget matters. Do you have that? I didn’t think so.
Sen. Houck went on to say that he was offended by the notion that we needed the bill, as putting in the bill implied that Virginia government was somehow not open and transparent already (I’m not kidding. I mean, I’m funny, but I can’t make this stuff up…). Virginia legislators, much less citizens, cannot find much budget or expenditure information online that’s worth the effort, and it certainly isn’t out there in any organized fashion that makes sensible research possible (forget easy, let’s start with possible…).
I wonder if Senator Houck would accept a challenge to take 10 minutes of his time to see if he can demonstrate that he can in fact find anything about specific expenditures via any online information now available from Virginia Government? Hmmm… I’ll ask. I’ll let you know what I hear back.
Ah the Senate… no matter which party is in charge, it’s the grandees who oversee the budget that have the real power. And it seems they are unwilling to allow even the palest glimmer of light to intrude on their fiefdom.