Our country is on an unsustainable fiscal path. This trend has accelerated over the last 10 years, and the huge deficits that were once a more distant concern of our children’s generation are impacting the lives of ordinary Americans today. For a country with the proud history and vast resources of the United States, this is unacceptable.

Many people have offered suggestions for how to reform our budget, but before we can even begin, we need to be clear on what the extent of the problem is. If we can’t even agree on what the budget numbers are now, there is no way that we will be able to have a meaningful discussion about what the solutions will be. That’s why Rep. Quigley recently released the first part of a report analyzing ways that we can make the budget more transparent, so we know exactly how much we’re spending, and on what. In releasing the report, Quigley continued the theme of reinventing government that he championed at the Cook County Board, where he wrote a series of reports on reforming county government.

Reinventing Government: The Federal Budget will be a series of reports assessing where we are financially and where we must go to prosper and grow. Part One includes 15 specific suggestions for ways to improve budget accountability. Specific recommendations of the report include:

• Sending individual tax receipts to every American detailing how each of their tax dollars are spent

• Bringing off-budget spending like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac liabilities and tax expenditures (spending through the tax code that costs $1.2 trillion each year) on budget

• Directing the Congressional Budget Office to score bills beyond their first decade to limit budget gimmicks that look good on paper

• Forcing the Defense Department to be audit-ready by 2014 and putting all defense spending on one budget

Read the full report here or the executive summary here. Quigley has also spoken on the House floor about the need to reform the Defense Department budget. We’re also interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas about our debt and deficit.