Need a gift idea? Give the gift of a transparent and accountable government

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Tis' the season for many struggling retailers to finally move their finances from the red ink column to the black. So, after enjoying a day of food and thankfulness, many of us will be putting on the full armor of early morning shopping, to include well-worn running shoes for capturing space at the head of the sale line and a steaming cup of coffee for that jump start needed for the upcoming Christmas shopping season. It's that time of year when we all should at least begin to think about gift giving.

I'm sure many in the liberty movement have heard or read the phrase, giving the gift of freedom.  But how are we doing? Like me, you might be asking yourself, "I've been giving the gift of freedom in every way I know how and what do I have to show for it?

"Regardless of your religious beliefs, Proverbs is a great place to go for quotes and there is one that I think applies to our movement today and even right here in Kentucky. Proverbs 24:10 states "Don't give up and be helpless in times of trouble (CEV)."

Unemployment still hovers at 9.7% across Kentucky and our state's budget gaps with regard to our public pension spending and Medicaid are only beginning to worsen. It's easy to look at the results of our statewide elections and those in neighboring states and be discouraged. But now is not the time. In fact, now may be just the time to start giving the gift of a transparent, accountable and constitutional government.

In fact, just several weeks ago, the Bluegrass Institute celebrated with an election day blog post that you can read here.   You see, the Bluegrass Institute is fighting for transparency and accountability in government everyday--election day and even black Friday.  And it looks like people are starting to wake up to the need for real transparency and accountability.

The Wall Street Journal, on November 18th, ran an article authored by Sarah Palin all about transparency and accountability. She talked about how politicians and their crony supporters get their power from their office and access to our hard earned tax dollars. She spells out how members of congress and the federal web of department regulators and bureaucrats exempt themselves from the laws they apply to the rest of us. She writes,

"That includes laws that protect whistleblowers and Freedom of Information Act Requests. The corruption isn't confined to one political party or just a few bad apples. It's an endemic problem encompassing leadership on both sides of the aisle. It's an entire system of public servants feathering their own nests."

And we know something about Freedom of Information Act Requests. You can follow our series on tips for filing an Open Records request by clicking here. We've been filing them since we won the prestigious Atlas Economic Research Foundation's Dorian & Antony Fisher Venture Grant in 2008--one of only nine think tanks in the world to win and the only one in the United States--for our efforts to build a liberty wiki dedicated to publicizing the results of our transparency and accountability efforts.

As Sarah writes in the WSJ, "We can no longer afford to be indifferent to this system of graft when our country is going bankrupt."

Maybe it's time to consider giving the gift of a transparent and accountable government.