Update, 4/4: The editors of the Denver Post agree with my commonsense observation, saying “We would prefer to see Ritter’s project hew more to the kind of details espoused in the legislative proposal.”
What kind of online state spending database are Coloradans going to get if they are going to hope to keep an eye on state government and help find cost efficiencies to save us all money?
This is the question of the hour, after Governor Bill Ritter’s weak executive order came out yesterday. We’re also learning that the Governor is working to kill bipartisan House Bill 1288, which would provide the real detail that is lacking from his watered-down order. The highly impressive new State Representative B.J. Nikkel is the sponsor of HB 1288.
National transparency advocates aren’t impressed by Ritter’s disingenuous attempt to steal the limelight on this issue. The National Taxpayers Union calls his order “pointless”, and Americans for Tax Reform says it’s a “toothless tiger”.
Memo to Bill Ritter: Please stop playing games with the taxpayers, and please stop trying to kill good legislation that genuinely protects the interests of taxpayers. Perhaps you don’t want to share credit with members of the opposing party, but your current course of action isn’t earning you any real plaudits at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.
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