Government Spending in XBRL?

by on December 22, 2008 · 7 comments

Mark Cuban probably didn’t know how much he’d rev up the hypocrisy meter when he suggested that the government should report its own spending and other financial information in XBRL. The SEC recently announced that it would require public companies to do their financial reporting in the format.

Having the government do it to is a GREAT idea.

And it will take years for that to happen.

Why? Because releasing information in a usable form is like releasing power. Agencies and bureaucrats aren’t in the business of giving away power.

I won’t lay predictions because the idea is so good that it may catch a head of steam, unify the transparency community, and get high-level attention in the administration. But barring that, it will be a cold day (today happens to be a cold day) when the government adopts XBRL. Until then, the hypocrisy meter is rising.

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Jim Harper

Jim Harper / Jim is the Director of Information Policy Studies at The Cato Institute, the Editor of Web-based privacy think-tank Privacilla.org, and the Webmaster of WashingtonWatch.com. Prior to becoming a policy analyst, Jim served as counsel to committees in both the House and Senate.

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    I guess this idea would end in shambles. I know that there is a right to privacy especially in companies. I don't know how far this transparency thing can go.

  • MikeRT

    Two problems with this:

    1) Many agencies aren't forced to account for their budgets. The Dept. of Education is a great example of that.

    2) Some agencies, like the members of the Intelligence Community can't report most of their spending in any meaningful level of detail.

  • AllData ProperlyProtected

    MikeRT: If the Intelligence Community COULD safely report their detail using XBRL (XBRL Global Ledger (XBRL GL) for detail and XBRL for financial reporting/government reporting for summaries), then XML Encryption could be used so the sensitive data selectively unfolds only to the right parties.

  • super_slam

    I bet the government will make their data available soon, in an open format. Maybe not exactly THAt open format, but open it will be. Much data already is, you can download census data for example, in open formats.

  • super_slam

    I bet the government will make their data available soon, in an open format. Maybe not exactly THAt open format, but open it will be. Much data already is, you can download census data for example, in open formats.

  • super_slam

    I bet the government will make their data available soon, in an open format. Maybe not exactly THAt open format, but open it will be. Much data already is, you can download census data for example, in open formats.

  • Pingback: Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Audit: Why Not Mandate Data Disclosure in XBRL?

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