Provide more info on budget woes

I grow weary of news that seems designed to produce anxiety but solve nothing. We seem to pay our taxes and fees, they go into a black hole called the general fund, then come out the other side as less than what we put in. The media stories seem to think the state legislators should be held accountable but they never seem to get around to telling us who or how.

If the media are so concerned with the financial plight of our state’s revenue problem, then get your sources to work and tell us, the electorate, just where the money is actually being spent and on what. And don’t give me what improvements some state agency has made on its annual budget request. The real story is how much did that agency spend at the end of the year. We never seem to hear those results. I’d be interested to know how much DSHS or the state Department of Correction cost taxpayers these past few years in civil suit payouts for inept performance, including those they thought they had done right but deciding it’s cheaper to pay-off than going to trial. The media telling us we’ve got a problem shouldn’t let them off the hook for helping us know where to bring some pressure to bear. If you news folk are going to tell me, the taxpayer, that I’ve got a problem, at least tell me which door I should be knocking on to effect the fix.