506
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
506 points (97.2% liked)
politics
19090 readers
3985 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
It needs to be law that all public officials release their tax records...Also no stock holdings.
I think it's ok for them to have stocks, they just should be put into a blind trust to manage, and they shouldn't be able to make any transactions outside of that for the duration of their term in office.
And the potential conflicts of interest should be described so their decisions can be analyzed against them if necessary.
Nah, I think they’ve shown they cannot be responsible with such a privilege and it should be taken from them.
Or, ya know, you could just make everyones publicly available by request along with earnings. Like they do in Finland.
Strangely, this seems to lower the amount of corruption in government and non-government organisations.
America is weirdly fucking puritanical about disclosing income. One of the many anti-union cultural legacies.
It would be one of the most impactful pro worker thing the government could do right now. So it won't happen:(
Hmm, should there be limits? I agree in principle that receiving public money as income should probably make your income records public knowledge, but... do we need to expose the personal finances of every park ranger? every military member? NASA engineers? Education board members? Or limit it specifically to elected positions? Would it then only apply to elected judges but not appointed ones? Every level - fed, state, county, city?
The problem is, your tax records have enough information on them to expose you to identity theft. High-profile positions like the President will have enough people watching all their records to prevent any serious identity theft attempts, but setting up that kind of oversight for every public official would be incredibly difficult and expensive. Exposing some government positions to identity theft like this creates some pretty serious security concerns. Just exposing the address of a judge could put them at risk.
Do you really think the president of the United States could be a victim of identity theft?
Edit: oh, I misread. No, you don't apparently. Answered my own question
Right, it's everyone else that would be at risk.
So you have two problems. Lack of financial transparency for public servants, and poor systems in place to mitigate identity theft.
Everyone in the world has this problem.
Yes we should release financials. They're public servants, not our lords. We can keep addresses etc secure when necessary.
My point is that it would always be necessary. Are you familiar with the OPM data breach?
Did you even read my comment? I'm not talking about "lords", I'm talking about people who are just government employees.
My local paper loved printing out names and salaries of the district's teachers every year.
EU here. All public servants report their wealth every year.
So they have to find other ways to hide it, mostly at relatives..
Government employees way too often forget they are public servants. The public has a right to know their salaries, to record them while they are working, and to expect respect and transparency.