Full-cost accounting

Terra: I can work on this with detail/references, but the point, for the casual observer, is to make sure that we (the public) can "drill down" to all and any government expenditure. This is "done" now...in the sense that we, you and I, can walk up to any Town Hall or state finance clerk and ask to see the records. BUT what is missing is both online accounting and "real time" accounting. So what you get is these unbelievably convoluted paper copy reports that are impossible to decifer. This is to the advantage of many insiders. What's worse is that the reports are so far past the point in time that you can actually DO anything about the expenditure or potential expenditure that it takes YEARS to dig through the mess, making it extremely easy for sneaky people to put one past the public. I have a LOT of experience digging through this type of mess, with huge successes uncovering nonsense that the public was outraged about. So yes, full cost accounting, but in a way that allows the public to be able to monitor on a real time basis what the heck is going on. I don't mean real time, like every second. But yes, when a check is cashed, that should show up on an excel sheet somewhere, where we can analyze. Ideally, and someday, I'd like actual "dashboards", which are super easy to create and modify, to allow online/real analysis by "regular people". Right now, I have to download unbelievably stupid messy Excel sheets IF I CAN GET THEM...or hand load paper copy or PDF info into Excel to be able to analyze stuff. This is NOT APPROPRIATE. And there is NO EXCUSE. It's cheaper to do it right. I could go on and on about this. the point is that we need this NOW.