It’s national Sunshine Week across America sponsored by the American Society of News Editors. Every year, we issue the clarion call to open the books.

The Trump administration should take three simple steps to shine light on spending:

1. Stop redacting federal salaries – The federal government is withholding salary information on nearly 255,000 civil service employees whose paychecks are funded by American taxpayers. That’s unacceptable.

2. Open the books on $1.1 billion in federal performance bonuses – In fiscal year 2016, the federal government awarded approximately one million performance bonuses, costing $1.1 billion. Every cent, however, was hidden from the taxpayers - shielded by federal union contracts.

3. Make federal pensions transparent – What has a $3.5 trillion-dollar unfunded liability, is hand calculated inside a windowless cave in Pennsylvania, and costs taxpayers more money annually than the entire state budget of Texas? Answer: Federal employee pensions.

Surprise! We found 255,000 salaries of federal bureaucrats redacted from the FY2017 federal payroll.

Congress is not happy.

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) sent a letter to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Acting Director Kathleen McGettigan, demanding to know why the information was withheld.

"Either OPM has been in error for the last 11 years or it is now," the OGR letter reads. "The American taxpayers have a right to see how their taxpayer dollars are being spent to the maximum extent practicable."

Read the letter

Join the Transparency Revolution. 

Remember, It's Your Money!