By Tom Coburn
Dr. Coburn is a former U.S. Senator from Oklahoma and serves as Honorary Chairman of American Transparency

With the rise of supposed outsider candidates, pundits are calling the coming presidential election a referendum on the establishment. 

They’re missing a more profound story, which is the rise of new elites. These are the citizen activists using technology to reshape the status quo in ways neither the traditional establishment nor today’s antiestablishment pretenders understand…

The law we helped pass in 2006, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, aka "Google Your Government," was an important marker in establishing transparency as a new norm in American politics. The bill put all federal spending online for any citizen to search.
 

The legislation also helped launch new transparency organizations. I serve as the honorary chairman of one, American Transparency. Adam Andrzejewski, the group’s founder, says the federal law empowered citizen activists to ask state and local officials, "If the federal government can open its books, why can’t you?"
 

The goal of American Transparency’s project, Open the Books, is to put every dime of government spending—on all levels—online, in real time. It’s an ambitious and audacious mission to map government’s role in our lives. 

On October 1, an updated version of our free Open the Books mobile app was released…

Please read the original editorial at The Wall Street Journal:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tracking-government-wastetheres-an-app-for-that-1444169479