February 18, 2010

Fixing the Government

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How can Congress make the government work better? The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has released a list of a dozen solid ideas:

  1. Pass Whistleblower Protection Law
  2. Create an Independent Audit Agency
  3. Improve Economic Recovery Efforts
  4. Put the Teeth Back in Financial Regulatory Agencies
  5. Uncover the Hidden Costs of Privatizing Government
  6. Ensure Taxpayers Get Their Fair Share of Revenues from Royalty Collection
  7. Increase Government Accountability and Transparency
  8. End Wasteful Defense Spending
  9. Make Government Watchdog Organizations More Accountable
  10. Drag the Nuclear Complex Out of the Cold War, and Ensure Oversight of Lab Contractors
  11. Disclose Conflicts of Interest in Scientific Research
  12. And of Course: Fix the Broken Federal Contracting System

My favorite idea of the bunch is probably the second one, an independent audit agency. The great thing about spending more money on auditors is that auditors catch enough waste and fraud that the increased funding tends to pay for itself, plus some. But government auditors are too dependent on the agencies and departments they’re supposed to be monitoring. “As a result,” POGO explains, “auditors’ findings have been ignored or altered, and in some cases have resulted in retaliation or demotion.” An independent audit agency wouldn’t have that problem. It would be respected—and feared. And when it comes to worrying about being audited, putting a little fear into government agencies is probably a good thing.

Anyway, the whole list is worth checking out—especially if you’re a member of Congress looking for some good reforms to support.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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