house Bill H.R. 2272
Public Disclosure of Budget Requests of the Sixteen Federal Agencies Comprising the U.S. Intelligence Community
Argument in favor
Both Congress and the pubic deserve to see where taxpayer dollars go. Intelligence spending without oversight is anti-democratic.
06/26/2016
I deserve to know what my taxes are paying for, and if the interests are kept confidential from the public, they obviously are not for the better of the public
01/20/2016
We should be able to know how much money the government is investing in these government programs.
Argument opposed
These programs require secrecy to be effective. Greater transparency would translate to larger security risks for America.
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02/29/2016
I worked in the Intelligence Community during my time in the service. Budgets are not kept secret to defraud the American people, its a security measure pure and simple. A bank doesn't make the typeof vault and alarm system it uses public knowledge for the same reason. Knowing what is there makes it easier to counter.
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06/25/2016
These agencies are already under the oversight of Congress. As a republic, we elect our own representatives who in turn act on our behalf in these matters. This allows us to keep the agencies in check without having them disclose their requests and activities to the general public.
These agencies are already under the oversight of Congress. As a republic, we elect our own representatives who in turn act on our behalf in these matters. This allows us to keep the agencies in check without having them disclose their requests and activities to the general public.
I worked in the Intelligence Community during my time in the service. Budgets are not kept secret to defraud the American people, its a security measure pure and simple. A bank doesn't make the typeof vault and alarm system it uses public knowledge for the same reason. Knowing what is there makes it easier to counter.
I deserve to know what my taxes are paying for, and if the interests are kept confidential from the public, they obviously are not for the better of the public
Nothing that should be kept from our enemies should be made public.
It doesn't have line item expenses. There's limited security risk if you're just seeing the bottom line.
We should be able to know how much money the government is investing in these government programs.
This will hardly affect national security, as it merely breaks the spending down into 16 large chunks. What is Russia or China going to do with the knowledge that the Marines Intelligence agency has 16 billion dollars, for example. This bill both provides transparency while preserving our national security.
This sounds innocuous enough:
This bill would allow all members of Congress and the public to see the budget of each agency, but not line-item expenses. For example, were the bill to pass, anyone could know how much money is going to the CIA, but not how the CIA is in turn allocating such funding.
Considering how UNTRANSPARENT the Obama administration is, I expect our "Imperial President" will veto this measure, if it passes. But maybe he'll surprise me.
I don't think we can afford to be anything else but perfectly upfront and honest with the American people at a time like this
Without line item expenses I don't believe this bill would compromise security enough to outweigh the benefits of people knowing where their tax money is going.
There is not enough information in a budget to compromise security
This bill discloses nothing about what the intelligence community does, only what the budget is to each agency. It therefore does not compromise our security. Americans have the right to know which agencies expenditures are allocated towards, especially since several of them (such as the NSA) are heavily criticized for their actions.
Nay to the public disclosure part of the bill. I would say Yea to the congressional oversight portion of it, but in no way should figures from secret agencies be made public.
I don't agree with spending our tax money without oversight.
In other words, should the Intel community be allowed to operate without any semblance oversight or accountability? No. Absolutely not. To have it any other way would be antithetical to Democracy.