Some things just leave you shaking your head.
Take, for instance, the recent news out of Pennsylvania. The commonwealth's auditor general, Jack Wagner, told the U.S. Government Accountability Office that Pennsylvania, in essence, can't be trusted to provide an accurate and open accounting of how it will spend its share of the federal government's stimulus aid.
“We are extremely concerned about the potential for a lack of statewide government transparency and accountability in the use of these vitally important funds,” Wagner wrote.
To be fair, Gov. Ed Rendell's office isn't happy with Wagner's assessment, which it believes is “unwarranted.”
Either way, it's time we started getting this stuff right.
The Obama administration is demanding greater financial transparency, accountability and oversight from banks and other corporate entities that are receiving federal funds. The SEC is cracking down on credit-rating agencies, demanding that they provide investors with more accurate and objective opinions of the firms they rate.
States, too, should be held accountable for how they spend their stimulus funds. And why not? A lack of these very things helped get us into this mess in the first place.
This is taxpayers' money we're talking about — yours and mine. We've been promised it will be used to fix our economy.
Let's make sure that it.
The economy at the Expo
The economy and its eventual recovery will take center stage at the second annual Maryland Business and Accounting Expo, scheduled for June 16-17 at the Baltimore Convention Center. Get complete details and register for this groundbreaking event here.