The following is an excerpt from our short course entitled “What Could Governments Do for Us?”
In our previous post, we discussed some of the factors that share a government’s ability to get things done.
In this post, we discuss a key requirement for accountability, the willingness and ability to monitor government policy outcomes against intentions.
Many governments invest in the ability to monitor needs, capacities, and progress.
Almost all governments try to keep track of their military capacity.
Most governments regularly track their economic output, foreign trade, inflation, and unemployment.
Many also regularly monitor the impact of various government programs on goals they set earlier, such as access to clean drinking water, adequate nutrition, and housing.
Governments that take legitimacy and accountability seriously tend to make the data they collect available to their citizens and business firms.
The most fundamental among these is a regular and accurate census. For example, in the U.S., a regular and accurate census is vital for understanding our changing tax base and spending needs.
- Click here to see an assessment of statistical capacities across countries as recently as 2022 from the World Bank.
The next post in this series will explore some of the basic budgetary choices citizens and their representatives in Congress can make.
To see the full short course, click on the blue link “What Can Governments Do for Us?“
We offer several other short courses on the U.S. system of government. You can find them here: https://cffad.org/topics/
