OP-EDs

While the White House has been selling a narrative reliant on a surge of gang violence pushing refugee children from their homeland, we learned a more complete story of aggressive advertisement of immigration relief, or “permisos,” and the desire for reunification with an illegally present adult in the U.S. before the president finalizes comprehensive immigration reform or expands anti-deportation policies.

For our neighbors, friends, and even family members who can no longer work for medical reasons, the federal Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program is a lifeline. The program is teetering on bankruptcy, which means large benefit cuts for current beneficiaries or a massive taxpayer bailout. We can avoid this…

Russia has allowed innocents to die because of these actions and more are at risk if this is left unchecked. There must be repercussions for this heinous and senseless act. The international community must speak with one voice and the United States must stand tall with our allies.

The president’s public declaration of no corruption follows the pattern of his very public campaign against conservative nonprofits following the Supreme Court’s affirmation of political free speech rights in the Citizens United Supreme Court case in 2011. Investigation has shown that the president’s repeated efforts to publicly attack conservative organizations were taken to heart by IRS officials who would help direct targeting efforts that commenced shortly thereafter. When the president speaks, even career employees in the federal government listen.

We have a government of laws. The rule of law must guide our bureaucracy down to the last email — and yes, the federal government’s national archivist has testified that the IRS “did not follow the law” in how emails were “lost” amidst Lois Lerner’s computer “crash” in 2011.

The DATA Act is a major bipartisan accomplishment, a technological leap for government, and one of the most significant government transparency bills to pass Congress. It gives lawmakers and watchdog groups powerful tools to identify, and root out, fraud, waste and abuse.

Federal bureaucrats too often escape prosecution for willful and egregious abuses of public trust: accepting thousands in illegal gifts from lobbyists, consistently lying on timesheets to collect a bigger salary, operating private businesses from their cubicle, and spending outrageous sums of taxpayer money on extravagant conventions in Las Vegas. But private citizens who find themselves on the wrong side of a regulation enforced by one of these bureaucrats may not be so lucky.

The democratic character of self government rests on the people’s right to know how their government spends the tax dollars it takes from them.  As government has exponentially grown, accountability has eroded – but technology can reverse this troubling trend with the passage of bipartisan legislation called the DATA Act….

In 2011, B. Todd Jones took over as head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives  (ATF) – first as Acting Director and later as Director.  The Bureau was in need of new leadership in the wake of Operation Fast and Furious, and his mission was to…

Six years into what President Obama had pledged would be “the most transparent administration in history,” transparency advocates are giving the president mixed reviews. Last week, lawmakers, reporters, and government watchdog organizations on both sides of the aisle came together for Sunshine Week, an annual celebration of government transparency laws…