The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Link: Top US accountability officer quits over job constraints – Yahoo! News.

Perhaps I spoke too soon in lauding the US system of government for allowing its Comptroller General to inform the voting public of the true, dire, state of the nation’s finances. The gentleman in question, David Walker, is making an early departure from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) to head a new public interest foundation.

In a press statement, he said;

As Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO, there are real limitations on what I can do and say in connection with key public policy issues, especially issues that directly relate to GAO’s client — the Congress

I wonder what those "real limitations" are.

It’s amazing how often politicians attempt to hide the facts, rather than face them. It seems to be a defect in democracy itself that, since so few voters are paying any real attention, spin, lies and suppression of data work better, politically, than good performance. The more "professional" politics becomes, the more dishonest it seems to be.

Perhaps it’s time to brush the dust off my plan (patent pending) to appoint legislators by lottery so that they are truly representative of society (and unable to form such lasting conspiracies against the public interest as the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties). Or perhaps we need term limits on legislators so that no-one can become a career politician.

Of course, it would be far simpler to shrink the state to such an extent that being a legislator could – as it once was – be part-time voluntary work.