It's said that the 4th (agency, branch?) of the US government was the press. Perhaps the destruction of a press sufficiently funded and driven only by the need to produce things people want to read, rather than entertainment people will pay to read or see, is a large factor in the dysfunction we see in the near term.
I would really love if the Government Accountability Office and some other organizations that produced reports for the library of congress...
1) By default had to publish to the public domain, with the report accessible in the public library stacks (mirrored everywhere).
2) Published a yearly report, with pretty color charts, breaking down the IRS input, which funds that goes towards, and where all of that goes (until it hits classified seal blocks; annotating when the classification is re-reviewed for extension and also when the current sunset to auto-unseal is scheduled.)
3) Also a report of all of the reports produced. (an index) Including those under seal, even if the titles are also redacted.
4) Could be directed to produce more reports by some form of citizen's initiative (maybe change.org?)
5) Should also have offices per state, mega-city (metro region), and county.
Obviously something is seriously wrong, and everything needs to be looked at, but the defeatist idea that “Well, it can’t be done, and if we do it, we’d just screw it up, so don’t bother.” Only in America is there one party that refuses to look at entrenched interests, and another that sabotages things in order to make a point, or more recently to simply “trigger” the other party.
I can tolerate incompetence, but really can’t stand sabotage.
[0] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/new-york-infrastruct...
Also, as a european, I see both american parties as being on the government is bad side, even if one of them are obviously more so than the other.