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Policy: Transparency Agenda
Our country has slipped away from Human-Centered Capitalism. The government does less to ensure everyone plays by the same set of rules. The government does less to ensure all Americans have the ability to participate in our economy. We have also slipped away from human-centered governance. We live in a less civil society, not because it has to be, but because we’ve allowed it to be. None of this happened suddenly; it was a slow, gradual process, the cumulative result of thousands of small decisions or non-decisions. And both political parties are to blame.
Fixing it will be a slow gradual process, too. For all the attention to the big programs, good governance is more often the cumulative impact of thousands of small decisions and actions. Getting back to human-centered governance will be the cumulative outcome of many small fixes and improvements in our laws and regulations.
The starting point for change needs to be greater transparency. As our country has slipped away from Human-Centered Capitalism and civil society it has also slipped away from transparency. Our country and economy were changing. Our regulations often didn’t keep up, allowing more and more activity to happen away from the light of transparency. This was partly because the groups that benefit from government regulations, or absence or non-enforcement of regulations, prefer those benefits be kept in the shadows, and partly because of the battle between the far right and the far left.
Transparency is almost always the starting point of good governance – it’s hard to know what needs to be fixed unless it’s first measured and unless we fully understand and quantify the challenge. Our government is more effective when we shine a light on a problem from many different angles, and from the perspectives of all of those who are affected by the problem.
Transparency, by forcing a fuller understanding of our challenges, also tends to move us towards compromise. There are answers to every problem facing our country - there just aren’t usually easy answers. The hard answers only work when there is broad support, and broad support is only achieved when the many different perspectives are reflected in the answer – when we reach a compromise acceptable to a broad majority. Yes, the path to answering most of our problems is through compromise, and compromise almost always follows transparency.
A Six Pack of Improved Transparency. Following are six proposals for changes to Federal law to increase transparency in our society. By themselves, none of them change outcomes – they don’t change the laws that dictate how we respond to challenges. Instead, they only serve to shine a light on the challenges, to help us more fully understand what is happening.
Fixing our country will be a slow, gradual process – but it can be fixed. We had a system that worked for us for a long time, and will work for us again. We just have to get back to it. These six proposals won’t bring transformative change to our country, or even to the issues they address. But they will be a starting point to a better understanding of the problems we face, and a starting point for a more realistic conversation on what it will take to bring change. They are a step back to the compromise of Human-Centered Capitalism.
Fixing it will be a slow gradual process, too. For all the attention to the big programs, good governance is more often the cumulative impact of thousands of small decisions and actions. Getting back to human-centered governance will be the cumulative outcome of many small fixes and improvements in our laws and regulations.
The starting point for change needs to be greater transparency. As our country has slipped away from Human-Centered Capitalism and civil society it has also slipped away from transparency. Our country and economy were changing. Our regulations often didn’t keep up, allowing more and more activity to happen away from the light of transparency. This was partly because the groups that benefit from government regulations, or absence or non-enforcement of regulations, prefer those benefits be kept in the shadows, and partly because of the battle between the far right and the far left.
Transparency is almost always the starting point of good governance – it’s hard to know what needs to be fixed unless it’s first measured and unless we fully understand and quantify the challenge. Our government is more effective when we shine a light on a problem from many different angles, and from the perspectives of all of those who are affected by the problem.
Transparency, by forcing a fuller understanding of our challenges, also tends to move us towards compromise. There are answers to every problem facing our country - there just aren’t usually easy answers. The hard answers only work when there is broad support, and broad support is only achieved when the many different perspectives are reflected in the answer – when we reach a compromise acceptable to a broad majority. Yes, the path to answering most of our problems is through compromise, and compromise almost always follows transparency.
A Six Pack of Improved Transparency. Following are six proposals for changes to Federal law to increase transparency in our society. By themselves, none of them change outcomes – they don’t change the laws that dictate how we respond to challenges. Instead, they only serve to shine a light on the challenges, to help us more fully understand what is happening.
- Corporate Revenue Transparency: Require 1099’s to be issued for all corporate revenue and that information to be reported to the IRS
- Tax Code Transparency: Require full transparency into tax loopholes in our tax code, including the number of people that benefit and the average benefit per person
- Voting Transparency: Require states to track how long people stand in line to vote
- Digital Threats Transparency: Require communications companies, whether email, apps, text messaging or social media, to add a button to their platforms that allows a user to flag a message as containing a threat and then automatically forward any flagged messages to the FBI
- Digital Fraud Transparency: Require phone and digital communications companies to add a button to their platforms that allows a user to flag a call or message as an attempt at fraud, with cellphone networks also required to record the conversation, and then automatically forward any flagged messages and recordings to the FBI
- Energy Use Transparency: If a vehicle or device has a digital display and an input, require the manufacturer add functionality to show the energy utilization of the vehicle or device in dollars and cents
Fixing our country will be a slow, gradual process – but it can be fixed. We had a system that worked for us for a long time, and will work for us again. We just have to get back to it. These six proposals won’t bring transformative change to our country, or even to the issues they address. But they will be a starting point to a better understanding of the problems we face, and a starting point for a more realistic conversation on what it will take to bring change. They are a step back to the compromise of Human-Centered Capitalism.
Corporate Revenue Transparency
Require 1099’s to be issued for all corporate revenue and that information to be reported to the IRS.
In the eyes of the law there are two kinds of persons in the United States: natural persons and legal persons. Natural persons are living, breathing human beings. Legal persons are the various forms of corporations, essentially a sheet of paper with the same rights to participate in our economy as a natural person. The invention of corporations was a significant step in the development of our economy, making possible the financial collaboration necessary for massive projects like building a factory. However one of the most fundamental ways that our government has allowed our economic playing field to become unlevel is the difference in treatment of living breathing persons and legal persons. In many different ways and without a lot of attention, our government now treats legal persons better than it treats living breathing persons.
A fundamental example is the difference in tax reporting. By law, any money paid to a living breathing person has to be documented in a W2 or 1099 sent to the person, and also be reported to the IRS. Why? Because if the IRS knows how much every living breathing person is paid, it’s much harder for living breathing persons to cheat on their taxes.
We don’t have that same requirement for legal persons. Corporations aren’t required to issue 1099’s to other corporations for the money they paid them, or report those payments to the IRS. Instead, legal persons are largely on the honor system – it's up to them to make sure they accurately report all of their income to the IRS.
Does this lack of transparency into corporate revenue allow some corporations to under-report their revenue? We don’t actually know - the IRS has no easy way of knowing if the legal person is telling the truth when it reports its income. But it doesn’t matter - there is no reason that reporting obligations for legal persons should be any different than the reporting obligations for living breathing persons. There is no reason for anything other than a level playing field – the federal government should have the same visibility into the finances of corporations that it has into the finances of actual people. The IRS needs to require 1099’s to be issued for all corporate revenue and that information to be reported to the IRS. And who knows, once corporations also have to start reporting their revenue, maybe we will see an increase in tax collections without actually increasing our tax rate.
Require 1099’s to be issued for all corporate revenue and that information to be reported to the IRS.
In the eyes of the law there are two kinds of persons in the United States: natural persons and legal persons. Natural persons are living, breathing human beings. Legal persons are the various forms of corporations, essentially a sheet of paper with the same rights to participate in our economy as a natural person. The invention of corporations was a significant step in the development of our economy, making possible the financial collaboration necessary for massive projects like building a factory. However one of the most fundamental ways that our government has allowed our economic playing field to become unlevel is the difference in treatment of living breathing persons and legal persons. In many different ways and without a lot of attention, our government now treats legal persons better than it treats living breathing persons.
A fundamental example is the difference in tax reporting. By law, any money paid to a living breathing person has to be documented in a W2 or 1099 sent to the person, and also be reported to the IRS. Why? Because if the IRS knows how much every living breathing person is paid, it’s much harder for living breathing persons to cheat on their taxes.
We don’t have that same requirement for legal persons. Corporations aren’t required to issue 1099’s to other corporations for the money they paid them, or report those payments to the IRS. Instead, legal persons are largely on the honor system – it's up to them to make sure they accurately report all of their income to the IRS.
Does this lack of transparency into corporate revenue allow some corporations to under-report their revenue? We don’t actually know - the IRS has no easy way of knowing if the legal person is telling the truth when it reports its income. But it doesn’t matter - there is no reason that reporting obligations for legal persons should be any different than the reporting obligations for living breathing persons. There is no reason for anything other than a level playing field – the federal government should have the same visibility into the finances of corporations that it has into the finances of actual people. The IRS needs to require 1099’s to be issued for all corporate revenue and that information to be reported to the IRS. And who knows, once corporations also have to start reporting their revenue, maybe we will see an increase in tax collections without actually increasing our tax rate.
Tax Code Transparency
Require full transparency into tax loopholes in our tax code, including the number of people that benefit and the average benefit per person.
Our tax code is used to encourage different kinds of economic activities. Allowing homeowners to deduct their mortgage interest payments makes home ownership less expensive and so accessible to more people.
Many of these tax breaks, like the mortgage interest exemption, allow expenses to be written off to reduce taxable income. Others are in the form of tax credits issued for private investments in socially desirable projects, for example low-income housing. Some tax breaks reduce the tax rate for a given activity or allow part of the profit to be exempt from taxation.
Many of the tax breaks are widely used; an estimated 20 to 30 million home owners take the mortgage interest deduction. Others are far narrower, benefitting only a small group of people, for example the exclusion of special benefits for disabled coal miners. All are in our tax code because Congress believed they would somehow benefit our country.
Tax breaks are also part of the reason why our playing field has become unlevel. Most kinds of tax expenditures have an inherent economic limit; there are only so many disabled miners. However the tax breaks that allow individuals to avoid paying taxes on the money they earn are far more flexible. Once written into law clever tax accountants and attorneys often find ways to expand the break to protect even more profit from taxes. They become just another way for people with money to avoid paying taxes.
Tax breaks tend to happen with less scrutiny and transparency, because they are money the government doesn’t actually receive. They also tend to have very long lives. As a result our tax code is stuffed full of special tax breaks and reductions, most of which benefit a small number of taxpayers, and some of which cost the government tens of billions of dollars every year. They help people that have already made a lot of many make even more money.
Each year the federal government publishes the estimated cost of the various tax breaks. However the report provides only limited transparency – it gives the total cost to government, but no detail on how many people benefitted or how much each benefitted.
We need to fix this lack of transparency. The IRS should be required to provide full transparency into tax breaks. For each category, it should provide the number of people or companies that benefitted, the average tax savings per taxpayer and the benefit to the single largest recipient of the tax break.
Providing transparency into tax expenditures won’t increase taxes or reduce our budget deficit. However it will allow us to have a more informed conversation about our tax code and may lead to a fairer tax code and a more level economic playing field.
Require full transparency into tax loopholes in our tax code, including the number of people that benefit and the average benefit per person.
Our tax code is used to encourage different kinds of economic activities. Allowing homeowners to deduct their mortgage interest payments makes home ownership less expensive and so accessible to more people.
Many of these tax breaks, like the mortgage interest exemption, allow expenses to be written off to reduce taxable income. Others are in the form of tax credits issued for private investments in socially desirable projects, for example low-income housing. Some tax breaks reduce the tax rate for a given activity or allow part of the profit to be exempt from taxation.
Many of the tax breaks are widely used; an estimated 20 to 30 million home owners take the mortgage interest deduction. Others are far narrower, benefitting only a small group of people, for example the exclusion of special benefits for disabled coal miners. All are in our tax code because Congress believed they would somehow benefit our country.
Tax breaks are also part of the reason why our playing field has become unlevel. Most kinds of tax expenditures have an inherent economic limit; there are only so many disabled miners. However the tax breaks that allow individuals to avoid paying taxes on the money they earn are far more flexible. Once written into law clever tax accountants and attorneys often find ways to expand the break to protect even more profit from taxes. They become just another way for people with money to avoid paying taxes.
Tax breaks tend to happen with less scrutiny and transparency, because they are money the government doesn’t actually receive. They also tend to have very long lives. As a result our tax code is stuffed full of special tax breaks and reductions, most of which benefit a small number of taxpayers, and some of which cost the government tens of billions of dollars every year. They help people that have already made a lot of many make even more money.
Each year the federal government publishes the estimated cost of the various tax breaks. However the report provides only limited transparency – it gives the total cost to government, but no detail on how many people benefitted or how much each benefitted.
We need to fix this lack of transparency. The IRS should be required to provide full transparency into tax breaks. For each category, it should provide the number of people or companies that benefitted, the average tax savings per taxpayer and the benefit to the single largest recipient of the tax break.
Providing transparency into tax expenditures won’t increase taxes or reduce our budget deficit. However it will allow us to have a more informed conversation about our tax code and may lead to a fairer tax code and a more level economic playing field.
Voting Transparency
Require states to track how long people stand in line to vote.
Meaningful voting fraud is extremely rare. Each year a handful of people are caught voting under another person’s name, but the impact is minimal – only one vote. The few instances of election that could impact an election have all involved misuse of absentee ballots. Most were some form of vote harvesting, getting people to request and turn over their absentee ballots. Scores of people across the country have been convicted for fraudulent use of absentee ballots.
In-person voting will always be more secure than absentee voting. However in-person voting can also be manipulated. Partisan election officials can reduce voting locations or provide fewer voting machines, causing multi hour waits in some locations. Making voting less convenient can have a significant impact on turnout, particularly for hourly or shift workers with less flexibility in their schedules. Long lines can cause people to leave before they get to vote and even keep some people from coming out to vote.
Our national battle over voting access is ongoing. The right accuses the left of trying to expand absentee voting to enable vote harvesting or outright election theft. The left accuses the right of limiting absentee balloting and making in-person voting harder to suppress Democratic voters.
The federal government doesn’t control voting, but it does have a role in making sure all Americans have equal access to the ballot. We already collect lots of data on voting. We know who is registered to vote, which people actually voted and where. However we are missing two critical pieces of information: how long do people stand in line before they get to vote, and how many get there and then leave because the line is too long? Greater transparency is the answer: the federal government should require all states to track when voters get in line to vote. States would be required to place an election worker outside of each polling place to check in voters when they get in line. Once inside, voters would formally check in, verifying their identity before they are allowed to vote.
Checking in voters will provide far greater transparency into our state voting operations. It will show how long each voter stood in line, the average time in line and how many people left before voting at each polling location. Transparency alone won’t change anything, but it will reveal any disparities in local voting access. Election officials will have another important reference point to understand and improve election access. If those disparities are egregious, it would give voters the information they need to pursue legal remedies. And hopefully transparency will reduce the contention around voting, showing that most state and local election offices are doing their best to ensure every American has an equal ability to cast their vote.
Require states to track how long people stand in line to vote.
Meaningful voting fraud is extremely rare. Each year a handful of people are caught voting under another person’s name, but the impact is minimal – only one vote. The few instances of election that could impact an election have all involved misuse of absentee ballots. Most were some form of vote harvesting, getting people to request and turn over their absentee ballots. Scores of people across the country have been convicted for fraudulent use of absentee ballots.
In-person voting will always be more secure than absentee voting. However in-person voting can also be manipulated. Partisan election officials can reduce voting locations or provide fewer voting machines, causing multi hour waits in some locations. Making voting less convenient can have a significant impact on turnout, particularly for hourly or shift workers with less flexibility in their schedules. Long lines can cause people to leave before they get to vote and even keep some people from coming out to vote.
Our national battle over voting access is ongoing. The right accuses the left of trying to expand absentee voting to enable vote harvesting or outright election theft. The left accuses the right of limiting absentee balloting and making in-person voting harder to suppress Democratic voters.
The federal government doesn’t control voting, but it does have a role in making sure all Americans have equal access to the ballot. We already collect lots of data on voting. We know who is registered to vote, which people actually voted and where. However we are missing two critical pieces of information: how long do people stand in line before they get to vote, and how many get there and then leave because the line is too long? Greater transparency is the answer: the federal government should require all states to track when voters get in line to vote. States would be required to place an election worker outside of each polling place to check in voters when they get in line. Once inside, voters would formally check in, verifying their identity before they are allowed to vote.
Checking in voters will provide far greater transparency into our state voting operations. It will show how long each voter stood in line, the average time in line and how many people left before voting at each polling location. Transparency alone won’t change anything, but it will reveal any disparities in local voting access. Election officials will have another important reference point to understand and improve election access. If those disparities are egregious, it would give voters the information they need to pursue legal remedies. And hopefully transparency will reduce the contention around voting, showing that most state and local election offices are doing their best to ensure every American has an equal ability to cast their vote.
Digital Threats Transparency
Require communications companies, whether email, apps, text messaging or social media, to add a button to their platforms that allows a user to flag a message as containing a threat and then automatically forward any flagged messages to the FBI.
Surely one of the significant changes in our society, and not in a good way, is the prevalence and even acceptance of casually threatened violence. Americans used to go months, years even, without someone threatening harm against them. Now online many people receive threats of violence or see threats against other people or groups almost daily. It’s illegal to threaten someone. However since these threats are being made remotely, usually hidden behind a screen name, action is almost never taken against the person making the threat.
Most school shootings also begin with online threats weeks or even months before the act of violence. In the vast majority of cases someone in the person’s social circle recognized that the person’s anger had changed. There were usually plenty of warning signs of the violence to come. It’s just that the warnings almost never made it to our law enforcement or mental health systems.
Currently there’s no easy way to report online threats to the authorities. Digital threats transparency would close this glaring hole in our public safety system. Electronic communications providers, whether email like Google, social networks like Facebook or Instagram or messaging apps like Messenger or WhatsApp, should be required to add a threats flag to their platform. Users who see an online threat against themselves or someone else would be able to report the threat directly to an FBI threats database for further action.
The goal isn’t to put a bunch of people in jail for an angry Twitter response. It’s to get people to pause before they threaten someone online. It will also make it easier to identify and prosecute those few that are truly abusive. It will also make it easier to identify people like the Uvalde shooter, before their anger explodes. The Digital Threats Act will give us transparency into the problem of online threats.
Sometimes it seems as if we are powerless to stop tragedies like the Uvalde school shooting or even the level of hatefulness of the Internet. We aren’t. Direct digital threats reporting would give us a far better chance to stop mass shootings before the shooter reached the point of picking up a gun and would also reduce the frequency of casual threats on social media. It will be the digital equivalent of the 911 system that has served our country so well. Digital threats transparency will take just a bit of the edge and violence out of the Internet and social media. It will be a small change that hopefully makes the online world and our society just a bit more civil and a lot safer.
Require communications companies, whether email, apps, text messaging or social media, to add a button to their platforms that allows a user to flag a message as containing a threat and then automatically forward any flagged messages to the FBI.
Surely one of the significant changes in our society, and not in a good way, is the prevalence and even acceptance of casually threatened violence. Americans used to go months, years even, without someone threatening harm against them. Now online many people receive threats of violence or see threats against other people or groups almost daily. It’s illegal to threaten someone. However since these threats are being made remotely, usually hidden behind a screen name, action is almost never taken against the person making the threat.
Most school shootings also begin with online threats weeks or even months before the act of violence. In the vast majority of cases someone in the person’s social circle recognized that the person’s anger had changed. There were usually plenty of warning signs of the violence to come. It’s just that the warnings almost never made it to our law enforcement or mental health systems.
Currently there’s no easy way to report online threats to the authorities. Digital threats transparency would close this glaring hole in our public safety system. Electronic communications providers, whether email like Google, social networks like Facebook or Instagram or messaging apps like Messenger or WhatsApp, should be required to add a threats flag to their platform. Users who see an online threat against themselves or someone else would be able to report the threat directly to an FBI threats database for further action.
The goal isn’t to put a bunch of people in jail for an angry Twitter response. It’s to get people to pause before they threaten someone online. It will also make it easier to identify and prosecute those few that are truly abusive. It will also make it easier to identify people like the Uvalde shooter, before their anger explodes. The Digital Threats Act will give us transparency into the problem of online threats.
Sometimes it seems as if we are powerless to stop tragedies like the Uvalde school shooting or even the level of hatefulness of the Internet. We aren’t. Direct digital threats reporting would give us a far better chance to stop mass shootings before the shooter reached the point of picking up a gun and would also reduce the frequency of casual threats on social media. It will be the digital equivalent of the 911 system that has served our country so well. Digital threats transparency will take just a bit of the edge and violence out of the Internet and social media. It will be a small change that hopefully makes the online world and our society just a bit more civil and a lot safer.
Digital Fraud Transparency
Require phone and digital communications companies to add a button to their platforms that allows a user to flag a call or message as an attempt at fraud, with cellphone networks also required to record the conversation, and then automatically forward any flagged messages and recordings to the FBI.
There was a time when Americans went months, years even, without someone trying to defraud or steal from them. There just weren’t that many ways for criminals to get at most people. Selling fraudulent products or services door to door exposed the criminals to arrest, the US Postal service aggressively policed against fraud and telephone calls could be easily tracked to the caller’s location in the US.
Now with modern communications a call, email or text message could come from anywhere in the world, easily and inexpensively. With this amazing freedom of communications has come a virtual onslaught of fraud. Fraudulent messages of our passwords being hacked. Fraudulent messages pretending to be from friends. Phone calls claiming to be from Microsoft saying they need remote access to our computer. The small frauds often lead to bigger frauds. Draining our bank accounts. Ransomware attacks. It can even rise to the level of a national security concern.
Currently, there’s no easy way for people to report attempted phone or email fraud to the government. Email providers allow users to flag messages as “phishing”, the sender misrepresenting themselves to trick the person receiving the email. Text messaging flags message from new numbers. However all the communications companies can do is attempt block further efforts at fraud.
The Digital Fraud Act would close this gap - the flagged message or recorded phone call would also be sent to an FBI database. The changes for email and other electronic communications providers will be insignificant. For phone providers, recording the call will require some development work, however the call setup information is already automatically recorded
Technology has greatly expanded the potential for people around the world to attempt to defraud us. We can use that same technology to fight back against fraud, to give law enforcement the information it needs to pursue and prosecute the people trying to defraud us. The new technologies didn’t change the old needs – part of the role of government is to protect us from people trying to steal from us.
Just identifying the fraud and understanding the scale won’t change things overnight – digital fraud will always be hard to track. However it will give us an idea of how much attempted fraud there actually is, and give the FBI and law enforcement the information they need to finally start tracking down and prosecuting the people trying to steal from us. And if we can stop the criminals before they are able to do the first fraud, we will be better able to protect against the larger crimes.
Require phone and digital communications companies to add a button to their platforms that allows a user to flag a call or message as an attempt at fraud, with cellphone networks also required to record the conversation, and then automatically forward any flagged messages and recordings to the FBI.
There was a time when Americans went months, years even, without someone trying to defraud or steal from them. There just weren’t that many ways for criminals to get at most people. Selling fraudulent products or services door to door exposed the criminals to arrest, the US Postal service aggressively policed against fraud and telephone calls could be easily tracked to the caller’s location in the US.
Now with modern communications a call, email or text message could come from anywhere in the world, easily and inexpensively. With this amazing freedom of communications has come a virtual onslaught of fraud. Fraudulent messages of our passwords being hacked. Fraudulent messages pretending to be from friends. Phone calls claiming to be from Microsoft saying they need remote access to our computer. The small frauds often lead to bigger frauds. Draining our bank accounts. Ransomware attacks. It can even rise to the level of a national security concern.
Currently, there’s no easy way for people to report attempted phone or email fraud to the government. Email providers allow users to flag messages as “phishing”, the sender misrepresenting themselves to trick the person receiving the email. Text messaging flags message from new numbers. However all the communications companies can do is attempt block further efforts at fraud.
The Digital Fraud Act would close this gap - the flagged message or recorded phone call would also be sent to an FBI database. The changes for email and other electronic communications providers will be insignificant. For phone providers, recording the call will require some development work, however the call setup information is already automatically recorded
Technology has greatly expanded the potential for people around the world to attempt to defraud us. We can use that same technology to fight back against fraud, to give law enforcement the information it needs to pursue and prosecute the people trying to defraud us. The new technologies didn’t change the old needs – part of the role of government is to protect us from people trying to steal from us.
Just identifying the fraud and understanding the scale won’t change things overnight – digital fraud will always be hard to track. However it will give us an idea of how much attempted fraud there actually is, and give the FBI and law enforcement the information they need to finally start tracking down and prosecuting the people trying to steal from us. And if we can stop the criminals before they are able to do the first fraud, we will be better able to protect against the larger crimes.
Energy Use Transparency
If a vehicle or device has a digital display and an input, require the manufacturer add functionality to show the energy utilization of the vehicle or device in dollars and cents.
Most Americans are conscious of their monthly spending on gasoline and electricity or natural gas. Given the cost of energy, many Americans already take steps to conserve their energy use and spending. However unless they’ve invested in a home energy monitor system they have almost no visibility into how that electricity is consumed in their house – how much the TV uses, or the phone charger. Every electronic device comes with information on how electricity it draws, but there is no easy way to calculate, for example, the amount of energy your refrigerator uses. We have better transparency into our spending on gasoline for our vehicle, with most trip computers able to measure and display miles travelled, miles per gallon and in some cases the amount of gasoline used on the trip.
However, even cars and trucks lack the most important kind of transparency: cost. Vehicles might tell the driver that they travelled fifteen miles, but they don’t tell the driver that the gas cost of the trip was $3.70. For most Americans, money is the reference point we use to consider and plan our activities. We think of the cost of going to the movie, or of taking a vacation, or even smaller things, like buying snacks for the soccer team. Money is the universal standard that helps us compare and select from the many different options available.
Virtually every electronics device already comes with an input. Virtually every new car now has a trip computer with a way of making selections. Vehicle and device manufacturers should be required to add functionality to allow the cost of the energy to be input, and then calculate and display the cost of usage. For the vast majority of manufacturers, it will require only an inexpensive software upgrade. Vehicle manufacturers would have to add the ability for consumers to click to increase or decrease the cost of gas. Electronics manufacturers would have to add the ability to enter the cost of a kilowatt of electricity. People won’t necessarily adjust the price of gas every time they fill up, but even an approximate cost will give them far greater visibility into their energy spending, and more control over their energy spending.
Our world depends on massive amounts of inexpensive energy, mostly from non-renewable resources. A key responsibility of our government is to make sure this generation, and future generations have access to the energy they need without causing catastrophic harm to our planet. There is no grand answer to achieving energy security. Instead it will come from the cumulative outcome of hundreds or even thousands of initiatives, projects and improvements. Giving consumers better control over their energy spending is one of the small things which, together, will help us have energy security while also minimizing the damage getting that energy does to our world.
If a vehicle or device has a digital display and an input, require the manufacturer add functionality to show the energy utilization of the vehicle or device in dollars and cents.
Most Americans are conscious of their monthly spending on gasoline and electricity or natural gas. Given the cost of energy, many Americans already take steps to conserve their energy use and spending. However unless they’ve invested in a home energy monitor system they have almost no visibility into how that electricity is consumed in their house – how much the TV uses, or the phone charger. Every electronic device comes with information on how electricity it draws, but there is no easy way to calculate, for example, the amount of energy your refrigerator uses. We have better transparency into our spending on gasoline for our vehicle, with most trip computers able to measure and display miles travelled, miles per gallon and in some cases the amount of gasoline used on the trip.
However, even cars and trucks lack the most important kind of transparency: cost. Vehicles might tell the driver that they travelled fifteen miles, but they don’t tell the driver that the gas cost of the trip was $3.70. For most Americans, money is the reference point we use to consider and plan our activities. We think of the cost of going to the movie, or of taking a vacation, or even smaller things, like buying snacks for the soccer team. Money is the universal standard that helps us compare and select from the many different options available.
Virtually every electronics device already comes with an input. Virtually every new car now has a trip computer with a way of making selections. Vehicle and device manufacturers should be required to add functionality to allow the cost of the energy to be input, and then calculate and display the cost of usage. For the vast majority of manufacturers, it will require only an inexpensive software upgrade. Vehicle manufacturers would have to add the ability for consumers to click to increase or decrease the cost of gas. Electronics manufacturers would have to add the ability to enter the cost of a kilowatt of electricity. People won’t necessarily adjust the price of gas every time they fill up, but even an approximate cost will give them far greater visibility into their energy spending, and more control over their energy spending.
Our world depends on massive amounts of inexpensive energy, mostly from non-renewable resources. A key responsibility of our government is to make sure this generation, and future generations have access to the energy they need without causing catastrophic harm to our planet. There is no grand answer to achieving energy security. Instead it will come from the cumulative outcome of hundreds or even thousands of initiatives, projects and improvements. Giving consumers better control over their energy spending is one of the small things which, together, will help us have energy security while also minimizing the damage getting that energy does to our world.