Financial transparency within the government has become much easier to manage than before. The Internet has provided the public with the possibility of checking how tax payer’s money is distributed among different sectors of our government an addition to how it’s being spent. That way, public officials who are accountable can become transparent behind the walls of government. Transparent procedures include financial disclosure statements, open meetings, budgetary meetings, audits etc. Transparency is a good idea and thanks to the Internet, members of the media can now televised transparency and broadcast all government expenditure to the public.

As tax payers, we want to know how the tax money is being used and how every penny is accounted for. However, transparency is not a new idea; some would argue that it was Republican Govs. Matt Blunt of Missouri or Bobby Jindal of Louisiana who started making government expenditure available on the Internet, but is it the same transparency that we came to know under the Obama’s administration.

Transparency in politic is the process by which officials of the government sets rules and regulation in order to monitor how tax payer’s money exchanges hand within different branches of our government. Without knowing how much money was transmitted originally from the initial hand, is not transparency, this would be pretentiousness. Making unjustified or excessive claim that transparency existed when in fact no one truly knows how much money was initially transmitted from the hand of the Federal Reserve.

The possibility of tracking every step of that money from the hands of the FR to the hands of corporations, local & states government is precisely the transparency that has become visible under the Obama's administration. No one is attempting to debate that transparency within the government never existed before, but in the manner in which the Obama's administration has strengthened transparency, no one can say for certain that it has been done before.

Now, I will not argue that no presidents other than Obama have strengthened transparency within the government body. That would not be a good position to take, just because no former presidents have exploited the Internet to broadcast transparency like the Obama’s administration have done, doesn’t mean it never existed. Transparency or not, former president Clinton left office with a surplus and to most tax payers, that’s all we need to know. Was transparency strengthening to that extent under Clinton? I would not doubt it did, but that by no way means that the potential for tax payer’s money to exchange hands under the table was not possible under Clinton.

So now that led us to ask why is Obama's administration so strict with the American tax payer’s money that some states would rather refuse being stimulated than to take the money. How strict is the administration really, because as of right now, every dollar is under the microscope. Not only have they monitored every government transaction, but they have also monitored those companies that they have stimulated. The president appointed Earl Devaney as the choice to lead the Recovery Act of Transparency and Accountability Board. A man who has the experience and capability to track down every dollar spent.

This guy Earl Devaney is a former Secret Service agent who is best known for his record of rooting out corruption as an Inspector General (IG) at the Interior Department, Devaney have said that “it's not enough just to detect fraud and waste -- we've got to prevent it before the act.” He is right because to prevent any faulty act of being committed it's more advantageous to stop it before it happens. You have to be able to foresee every opportunity where fraud can be possible and permanently detour it from its direct course. This guy means business but however, for true transparency to be fully reinforce, even Earl Devaney would need to be monitored. They say where there’s a will there’s a way and without monitoring Earl Devaney, his will can direct his way into the American tax payer’s pocket. This by no way suggests that’s his intention, it only implies a possibility which could become possible if no true transparency had been present.

Now, to look at transparency at a different angle, can we say perhaps Obama’s cultivating the ground for the next election? Would that be an unreasonable claim to make or is this claim right on target. And even if it's not true, would it be wise for him to think of his first term in office as a campaigning term. Since every thing he says and do or even attempting to say is consequential for the next election, isn’t it logical for him to view his first term as a campaigning one. Besides, everything he does in his first term will be use as report card to judge his previous performance so in that sense he's right for chosen his word carefully.

Some would say he already received an A+ for this transparency he has laid down via the World Wide Web. Others can also argue that Obama came up with this transparency platform because he knows if he even mistakenly squeezes his cheeks the wrong way, the republicans would stick him. So in a sense, some can see the Internet transparency thing as Obama’s precocious attempt from getting stick by the Republicans with bad publicity which can damage his chance for being re-elected.