Anti-Climacus

LINK: The Corpus Callosum (that's the thing that connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain, no?) highlights a couple of interesting suggestions about governmental reform:

The biggest potential hurdle is time, up to about 4 hours total with 40 questioners (but only about 2 hours with 20 questioners per session). This seems challenging at first, but on reflection, I'm just as happy with that. Given the amount of time that Presidents (and Congresspeople) spend in fundraisers and other political events, I think they can spend 4 hours per month on some direct, unscripted interaction. I think this would shake things up mightily, and for the better. Both the administration and Congress would be more visibly accountable. Constituents would have more reason to communicate with their representatives. The process would be unaffected by congressional leaders and their parliamentary tricks. And most importantly, the Presidency would become less insulated.

Interesting, but would never actually work. The President would either know or easily be able to anticipate the questions from his party (wink wink), and people from the opposition would use the time to make speeches to make themselves sound good. I think these are general principles observable in House and Senate committee hearings, as well as British Question Time.

But I really, really like this idea:

"Let's also make it a requirement that the President include a financial statement in the State of the Union address. He or she would be required to sign it, much like CEO's now have to sign off on the accuracy of the company's financial statements. The financial statement would have to account for anything that results in current or future governmental expenditures. So if bonds are sold, that counts as an expense. Also, the government would be charged depreciation on infrastructure. Thus, if they defer something like highway repairs, it doesn't give the appearance that they actually have saved any money. Putting off necessary expenses, or using bonds to pay for ongoing expenses, are expenses that necessitate an eventual tax increase, but it is an expense that the next Administration has to pay for. Let’s make the administration that generates the expense accountable for it."