Introduction

When the news broke that AIG was paying $165 million in bonuses when taxpayers were providing $170 billion to keep the company afloat, elected officials were initially as outraged as the American public at the injustice. The next day, however, the President, the Treasury Secretary and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban affairs admitted that they intentionally created a loophole in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to allow for these bonuses. The media immediately declared the actions a government payoff and elected officials scrambled to save face by describing the countless legal and contractual issues they had to overcome when writing the act. The important questions that should be asked are how did they not know the consequences of their actions and, just as importantly, how did we, the American people, not know?

The answer to the latter depends largely on how we define and deliver government transparency. Historically, the definition has been “show us what you have done”; however, this leaves citizens and the media with the less than ideal options of complaining to or complimenting the government after the fact. An alternative definition is “let me participate in what you’re doing as you’re doing it”. Critics of this idea argue that it will make government too slow, will cost too much, is technically impossible, or is simply, perhaps, too much transparency.

But by using a model that has already been proven successful by hundreds of state and local government agencies, an open and transparent government can be achieved at a fraction of the $165 million in bonuses that may have gone to AIG executives.