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In a government that is supposed to be of the people, for the people, and by the people, the actions of our elected servants should always be transparent and available for review by the men and women of their state, city, township, or county. Since our government essentially is “us, the people”, logic would follow that how our elected servants spend our money should not, with limited exceptions, be confidential.
The State of Montana disagrees that the actions they take in our name should be transparent, at least not since 2013. On Montana’s Transparency website called Transparency.Mt.Gov, one can enter the correct search terms from the “Checkbook Accounts Payable” section and find a wealth of not only wasteful spending on items you did not know existed but billions of dollars in confidential payments made to a variety of payees, as well.
Helena woman Debbie Westlake keeps a keen eye on not only the checkbook of Montana but the state’s credit\debit card payments also. In the interview below, Westlake reveals that our elected servants have spent more than $16.5 billion in taxpayer dollars on secret or confidential payments since 2013.
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