What does Steve Ballmer have to do with the Ethics of Govt. Spending?

Steve Ballmer, the man who with Bill Gates founded Microsoft, has just launched an interesting piece of software called USAFacts. The software is intended to track government spending. My response is that it is long overdue.

Steve Ballmer has spent $10 million to develop the “product,” because it was nearly impossible for him to find information on how the government was spending its money – and where. In a recent interview on CNBC, Ballmer said:

“What we’re trying to do now is create a foundation for a more fact-based discussion about what’s going on with government in our country. This is really a starting point. We need more data.”

Steve Ballmer emphasized that he wants to accumulate the facts in a nonpartisan way, and I hope he is a man of his word. He was initially hoping that somewhere in the mass of the bureaucratic tangle that represents “The Government,” that he could produce a financial report similar to what a publicly-traded company might generate. Well Steve, good luck with that.

The USAFacts software was able to accumulate some interesting data. For example, in 2014 our country had revenues of about $5.2 trillion. About 60 percent of that came from federal income taxes and the rest came from the states and cities. Steve Ballmer also learned that 23.2 million people work for the government in some way. That’s a lot of people being supported by lots of us who don’t work for the government. Ballmer could not find information on how much the government spends on healthcare or even education. Are you surprised? I can’t say that I am.

Steve Ballmer: Accountability, Anyone?

As the software improves for USAFacts Ballmer is optimistic that we can determine how much our local governments are spending as well, and where the money is going versus what we’re taking in revenues. Understand that when we say “revenues,” we should really be thinking in terms of taxes and bonds. Governments raise money by raising taxes or convincing investors that they are a good investment.

Here, again, is where I hope the nonpartisan determination is really what Steve Ballmer means. Whether Democrat, Republican or even Independent, a city that is taking in a lot less than it is spending, should be under the same scrutiny no matter the party in charge.

If USAFacts determines that a city deeply in debt voted raises for all its city council members, shouldn’t it be subject to the same review no matter the administration or political affiliation? Suppose a bridge has a massive cost overrun and it throws a budget into the red, shouldn’t we be able to examine each detail of the project to determine how the cost overruns occurred?

Perhaps Steve Ballmer’s project could be thought of in ethical terms. Rather than as a financial source of information, could we view it as an ethical test?

Going back up to the point made about education for example, if the government has no grasp on how much money it is spending on education, is that not an ethical crisis? How is the money allocated for education? If there is a huge overrun, where is the money going? There must be someplace, somewhere, where we can see the money going down the drain. If a local government has a huge and unanticipated expenditure on a new high school, is it ethical for the local government to then keep the same pace of spending in other areas, or should they cut back?

If USAFacts is indeed intended to be fact-based, should a town, city or even the federal government be held ethically accountable for budget abuses? Should there be an “ethical trigger” where a team of ethics experts, rather than financial experts are permitted to review the dynamic that is in place?

Steve Ballmer may be onto something big here, maybe much bigger than even he realized when first embarking on the journey.