I've been watching the tail end of US Budget discussion and began to be quite disappointed at the process in which this has come together.  While I do appreciate the fact that this was not easy as no budget planning should be easy, especially when it comes to taxpayer money. What I don't appreciate is the manner at which this budget was developed. It got to a point where the discussion was more about striking a "deal" as opposed to whether or not the right budget is developed. The fact that it was turned into a deal should have the public still uneasy.

The challenge I see that even though a budget is passed, we have no insight into how productive our government departments are or how they work to save money. What appeared to be a key roadblock in finalizing the budget is the money allocated to Planned Parenthood. What about the money allocated to other social service programs? How are they spending their dollars and how much more productive have they been since the prior year? Are any of the departments awarded based upon how much they save? How they utilize technology to advance the services they provide?

Maybe I'll spend some time going through some of the US departments web sites and see if I see any details for how they're getting better at providing services to citizens. If we are really going to become more involved in our government, we have to hold them to the same standards as we work by.