After news yesterday that government officials are abusing their credit cards, the New York Times is quick to show it really does care about taxpayers. They editorialize today:

A pending Senate proposal would mandate such obvious precautions as regular audits by each department’s inspectors general, second-party approval of credit purchases, the denial of cards to workers with poor personal credit and firing for blatant abusers.

We don’t doubt that most of the 300,000 employees with government credit cards are honest, as agency officials insist. Here’s a chance to demonstrate that by nailing misfits who consider government service a license to pick the public’s pockets.

Wow, strong language from a newspaper that regularly endorses taking away the tax cuts of 2003. Let’s applaud them for coming to their senses.

But it occurs to me that their solution for government gone wild is to create more government. Why should we trust internal auditors any more than the bureaucrats who misspend the publics money. Or better yet, why should we trust the regulators to write the auditing rules in a way that properly exposes government waste? Is this really the best we can do?

I’m not against audits, but I think there is a much easier solution to this problem. PUT ALL CREDIT CARD STATEMENTS (and receipts) ONLINE!!! Why not let the millions of bloggers just itching to scoop a big newspaper, spend their time and resources sifting through credit card receipts. I’m serious! I trust ten thousand bloggers more than ten thousand bureaucrats any day of the week.

The road to reform is paved with transparency!