{"id":13218,"date":"2014-09-24T09:56:09","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T13:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=13218"},"modified":"2014-09-24T09:03:16","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T13:03:16","slug":"oped-time-to-boost-accountability-and-transparency-for-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=13218","title":{"rendered":"Op\/Ed: Time to boost accountability and transparency for Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ryan Costello<\/strong>, Chester County Commissioner<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"RyanCostello\"<\/a>

Ryan Costello<\/p><\/div>\n

The gridlock and partisan rancor in Congress is taking its toll on the public\u2019s perception of Congress, and rightfully so.\u00a0 According to a recent Gallup poll, only 14 percent of Americans think Congress is doing a good job.\u00a0 That puts the public\u2019s approval of the job Congress is doing at one of its lowest points in history.<\/p>\n

As a member of Chester County\u2019s Board of Commissioners, I have made it a point to work with both my Democrat and Republican colleagues in a bipartisan manner on issues such as developing fiscally responsible budgets, protecting open space, and making sure priorities such as our local libraries and emergency response system are properly funded.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the way I believe government should work.\u00a0 But right now, it\u2019s not the way Congress or Washington works.\u00a0 Too often, it seems like elected officials are more interested in scoring political points than working to find areas of commonality and agreement.\u00a0 That\u2019s not good government.\u00a0 And in my view, it is harmful to the economic and social health of the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part of the reason why I am running for Congress in Pennsylvania\u2019s 6th<\/sup>\u00a0District is to help find common ground and move our country in a positive direction. So the question is, how do we restore the public\u2019s confidence in Congress?\u00a0 In my opinion, we need to start with reforms focused on increasing accountability and transparency.<\/p>\n

One of the most basic responsibilities of Congress is passing an annual budget that funds the federal government. Every family sits down at the kitchen table every month and makes a budget, but Congress has never passed an on time budget since President Obama took office. As a County Commissioner, our budgeting process involves quarterly reports at public meetings from our finance department, budget guidelines and meetings with our department heads regarding revenue and expense projections, and presentation and discussion of our budget at public meetings.<\/p>\n

That is why I support a reform known as the \u201cNo Budget, No Pay Act.\u201d\u00a0 This legislation would cut off pay to Members of Congress if they fail to pass an annual budget on time each year.\u00a0 If they don\u2019t accomplish this basic task, Members of Congress don\u2019t get paid until they do.\u00a0 By holding Congress accountable, we can incentivize members of both parties to work together on budget issues and reach compromise on their differences.<\/p>\n

At the same time, we need to increase transparency in Congress. In the age of smartphones and tablets, there are still far too many government documents that are not available online for public review in a timely manner or in a reader friendly format.\u00a0 This includes a significant number of Congressional documents.<\/p>\n

To start, reports and analysis by the Library of Congress on legislation, federal programs, and regulations should be published online for public review.\u00a0 Transparency increases accountability, which leads to good government.<\/p>\n

We also need to reevaluate the way congressional district boundaries are set. Far too often, districts are gerrymandered in ways that create either very conservative or very liberal districts. These types of districts tend to make some Members of Congress vote and act in a more partisan manner to avoid a primary challenge from within their own party.\u00a0 That in turn reduces the number of elected officials willing to work in a bipartisan fashion to build consensus. When possible, congressional districts should be as geographically condensed as possible.<\/p>\n

These are just a few of my ideas on how we can restore public confidence in Congress through increased accountability and transparency.\u00a0 My hope is to start a broader discussion about Congressional reform, and encourage others to share their ideas so that we can restore public confidence that we have a \u201cgovernment of the people, by the people, and for the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan Costello is Chairman of the Chester County Board of Commissioners and the Republican candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania\u2019s 6th<\/sup>\u00a0Congressional District, which includes portions of Chester, Montgomery, Berks, and Lebanon Counties. Visit\u00a0www.ryancostelloforcongress.com<\/a>\u00a0for more information.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ryan Costello, Chester County Commissioner The gridlock and partisan rancor in Congress is taking its toll on the public\u2019s perception of Congress, and rightfully so.\u00a0 According to a recent Gallup poll, only 14 percent of Americans think Congress is doing a good job.\u00a0 That puts the public\u2019s approval of the job Congress is doing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3497,4],"tags":[15,39,5241,114,5240],"class_list":["post-13218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-featured","tag-chester-county","tag-congress","tag-reforms","tag-ryan-costello","tag-sixth-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13219,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13218\/revisions\/13219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}