Hmm, should there be limits? I agree in principle that receiving public money as income should probably make your income records public knowledge, but… do we need to expose the personal finances of every park ranger? every military member? NASA engineers? Education board members? Or limit it specifically to elected positions? Would it then only apply to elected judges but not appointed ones? Every level - fed, state, county, city?
The problem is, your tax records have enough information on them to expose you to identity theft. High-profile positions like the President will have enough people watching all their records to prevent any serious identity theft attempts, but setting up that kind of oversight for every public official would be incredibly difficult and expensive. Exposing some government positions to identity theft like this creates some pretty serious security concerns. Just exposing the address of a judge could put them at risk.
Government employees way too often forget they are public servants. The public has a right to know their salaries, to record them while they are working, and to expect respect and transparency.
Hmm, should there be limits? I agree in principle that receiving public money as income should probably make your income records public knowledge, but… do we need to expose the personal finances of every park ranger? every military member? NASA engineers? Education board members? Or limit it specifically to elected positions? Would it then only apply to elected judges but not appointed ones? Every level - fed, state, county, city?
The problem is, your tax records have enough information on them to expose you to identity theft. High-profile positions like the President will have enough people watching all their records to prevent any serious identity theft attempts, but setting up that kind of oversight for every public official would be incredibly difficult and expensive. Exposing some government positions to identity theft like this creates some pretty serious security concerns. Just exposing the address of a judge could put them at risk.
Do you really think the president of the United States could be a victim of identity theft?
Edit: oh, I misread. No, you don’t apparently. Answered my own question
Right, it’s everyone else that would be at risk.
So you have two problems. Lack of financial transparency for public servants, and poor systems in place to mitigate identity theft.
Everyone in the world has this problem.
Yes we should release financials. They’re public servants, not our lords. We can keep addresses etc secure when necessary.
My point is that it would always be necessary. Are you familiar with the OPM data breach?
Did you even read my comment? I’m not talking about “lords”, I’m talking about people who are just government employees.
My local paper loved printing out names and salaries of the district’s teachers every year.
EU here. All public servants report their wealth every year.
So they have to find other ways to hide it, mostly at relatives…
Government employees way too often forget they are public servants. The public has a right to know their salaries, to record them while they are working, and to expect respect and transparency.