Interview with independent candidate for Massachusetts Auditor - Kamal Jain!

Kamal Jain is an Independent candidate running for MA State Auditor in 2010.  If you have no idea what an auditor does and what crucial role this individual plays in your government, then allow Mr. Jain to inform you.   If you have no knowledge of Massachusetts state budget and how your hard earned money is being spent or if you have downloaded and perused the budget reports to be left puzzled and confused - discover how Kamal Jain plans to fix this issue once and for all. 

1) RC: Kamal Jain, thank you for giving us the opportunity to find out more about your campaign. What is your political background?

KJ: Thank you giving me the opportunity to talk about my campaign. Growing up, I always felt disenfranchised from the political system. I could see that everything was run by the Democrats or Republicans, and neither of those groups represented my values, so for many years I stayed away from politics and just complained about ever-growing government. Then in 1996 I found the Libertarian Party and became a member. Most of their values aligned with my own. In addition to being an activist, I found myself rising up through the ranks of the state party until I found myself Chairman. In the end though, as with all party politics, disagreements come up over seemingly silly things and labels just don't feel right -- so I left the party and became an independent or "unenrolled" voter.

RC: Do you foresee obstacles running as an indepenent in a state where third party/independents are shunned by the establishment?

KJ: Not at all. More than half of registered voters are not enrolled in any party, and history has shown that voters are partial towards an INDEPENDENT Auditor. The candidates from the two entrenched parties will have their respective political machines behind them which gives them an edge when it comes to campaign activities, but they will also have to contend with primaries.

2) RC: A lot of people in this state and probably every other state do not know much about what the Auditor does, who the Auditor is and the importance of an Auditor. Why are you interested in running for a position so few people understand and know about?

KJ: The Office of the State Auditor is responsible for ensuring all state agencies are audited every two years in compliance with state law, and generally making sure that standard financial controls and reporting are followed. There is also some control over privatization and outsourcing, and some overall financial opinion-sharing. In theory there is an opportunity to identify waste and corruption as well, but I don't believe it is possible for the government to really audit itself. Not only do they not have the resources, but they don't have the right incentives -- self-auditing and self-reporting present an inherent conflict of interest, especially when someone else's money is involved (the taxpayers' money). The current Auditor is Joe DeNucci, and he has been in office since 1987. The reason I am running for State Auditor is because it is the only statewide constitutional office elected by the people with the authority and oversight necessary to bring transparency and accountability to state government. It is not in the purview of any other office.

3) RC: What is your assessment of current Auditor Joseph DeNucci who claims to have saved billions of dollars in waste?

KJ: Quite simply, you have to look at the numbers and what it means to "save money". While Mr. DeNucci may have identified waste, the amounts he claims are highly speculative and also pale in comparison to the total amount of money that was spent during his tenure. Most importantly, if he had saved the taxpayers any money, it would have come back to the taxpayers. Instead, government simply spent it on other things while raising taxes and spending year after year. There's no savings.

RC: Assuming you become our next Auditor and are able to locate and identify billions in "waste", what authority do you have to request this money be returned to the citizens? If you can convince Beacon Hill that they are in posession of extra money they clearly do not need, how can you convince a group of people to do something they traditionally never do - give the money back.

KJ: Remember, most waste and corruption will be found by the people and the Massachusetts "Grace Commission" (for lack of a better name). It will be an ongoing process starting from the launch of the portal and going on perpetually. The point is that the people will have visibility into all parts of government spending and operation, and therefore have the information they need to tell their elected officials how they would like the priorities adjusted. As Auditor, I see one likely role as helping to provide the people with more in-depth efficacy and efficiency analysis that might be more difficult for private citizens to assess without the inside knowledge the Auditor has. No matter how good an accountant or auditor one is, identifying waste and corruption within state government is far too big a job for any one person. Every transaction, contract, project, program and agency must be scrutinized from the top-down and the bottom-up.

4) RC: In a speech you gave recently in Boston you mentioned the existing lack of transparency within the financial tangle known as the Massachusetts state budget. Is this lack of transparency due to the current auditor or simply “the way things work”? How do you plan to address these hurdles?

KJ: It is just the way things have worked for decades and currently do work on Beacon Hill. The blame belongs to all of the politicians, including the current Auditor. The truth, however, is in the audited figures. It is available from within the state's data warehouse. The trouble is that in addition to the politicians playing their games of what "the budget" is as opposed to total spending, the media and most private analysts let them get away with it. People have accused me of trying to redefine "the budget", when in fact I'm simply trying to draw attention to total state government spending, which is almost double the official budget because so much has been taken "off budget" through political and legislative sleight of hand.

RC: We have been hearing about these off-budget figures for some time now, particularly moving certain kind of spending off-budget a tactic made popular during the Romney administration. It would sound like it is the politicians who are trying to redefine the budget, but what is the underlying reasoning behind these accounting gimmicks? Just so that our readers are perfectly clear; Is there any distinction between state spending whether it be on-budget or off-budget and which one has grown faster?

KJ: Looking back at total spending for the past decade or so, the percentage that is off budget versus on budget has remained about the same, but both have steadily grown. It is not clear to me when the politicians started played games with "budget" versus off-budget spending, but based on my read of data available I would say it has been a tactic used by Governors and legislators from both major parties for at least a couple of decades. There has been a lot of change in how financial data is reported over the years, so one cannot easily go back and compare budget v. off-budget from today to say 20 years ago. Also, a lot of detail that is now electronic was not always the case.

5) RC: Why is transparency important for the average citizen and what can we do with the information once the transparency is exposed to us?

KJ: Transparency will allow individual citizens, taxpayers, businesspeople and contractors -- all kinds of people -- to find out how much money is being spent, where it is going, and how effectively it is being spent on what. Government has to be subject to the same basic laws of economics and mathematics as the rest of us. The state government has largely existed outside of those constraints because of politically-driven spending. It's driven by special interests who get in line for taxpayer money, and the politicians count on those special interests for votes and contributions. The state government is chock full of waste, and I hear that directly from state government employees every time I speak with them outside of their offices when they feel safe saying it. The stories I hear from people of waste and corruption are not the whole picture either. You have to remember that the state government spends over $50 billion a year and that is made up of millions and millions of individual transactions, awarded contracts, payouts, pensions, etc. When the people have the tools and information to be able to ask questions like "how much did that cost?" and find their own answer, it will become more and more difficult to hide waste and corruption. Imagine having millions of auditors right here in Massachusetts, with no conflict of interest!

RC: So After the Masachusetts "Grace commission" begins producing results and the citizenry becomes enraged at the level of waste - what can this citizenry do? After all, the people in power always maintain the advantage of being more organized and in a position to do whatever they please. As we all have learned "throwing the bums out" mantra only goes so far in state where the incumbency rate is in the stratosphere. So what can be done?

KJ: Feeling helpless comes from years of people being taught to be victims, and to not take things into their own hands. Not surprisingly, this feeling has been inculcated into people by politicians and demagogues for centuries to control and subjugate the people. Yet, these schemes always eventually fail and people do rise up against their masters who, in this case, claim to be "public servants". For decades, the Berlin wall stood, seemingly impenetrable and impervious. But fall it did, and few imagined or predicted it, even until days before it fell. My goal for transparency in Massachusetts includes extending it to all 351 cities and town. Waste and corruption at the local level will be the easiest to address because the people can easily demand remedies at town or city meetings. It's very hard for local politicians to escape the wrath of local voters. Success at the local level will likely come first, which will then help empower people to root out waste and corruption at the state level.

6) RC: Let’s say you become Auditor, what is the very first thing that you want accomplished and what obstacles do you foresee?

KJ: The first thing I would do would be to commission two separate groups made up of specialists and concerned citizens -- all from the private sector. One would be tasked with developing a citizen information portal with lots of input from the people and experts in the fields of forensic accounting, statistical analysis, law, etc. The second would be much like the famed Grace Commission, which was made up of thousands of private sector people working for two years to identify and analyze Federal government waste. They showed that at the Federal level there was more than 30% waste. Formal and informal polls of citizens and government workers in Massachusetts estimate waste to be even higher, but we can't know until we look, and again...only those outside of government can be dispassionate, rational and unbiased in identifying waste and corruption.

RC: This sounds like a wonderful idea and an immediate and direct benefit to the citizens of Massachusetts. If these polls are correct then based on your previous answer, I conclude that our politicians are wasting roughly $15 billion dollars - ironically the total revenue of the state income tax. When the Grace commision reported it's findings in 1984 they warned that unless things change we would see a 13 trillion dollar federal deficit by the year 2000 - apparently they were off by 9 years. This would suggest that a report alone is not enough to curtail waste.

KJ: As I often remind people, government lacks the right incentives to not only audit itself, but also to act in the best interests of the most people in the long-term. Politicians generally seek to get re-elected, and to do that they need votes and support from the special interests they often pander to; that's just the reality of politics. 1984 was the beginning of yet another boom time in America and the politicians were able to escalate unsustainable government spending and growth at all levels of government (Federal, State, County and Local) for almost another 25 years. It was unsustainable all along, and sooner or later the party would end with one heck of an economic hangover. The voters are waking up and getting angry. That's why the Tea Party movement across the country is gaining strength every day. I had the privilege of speaking at 4 or 5 Tea Party events in 2009, and I see the people awake and excited and ANGRY in ways I've never seen in my life. Presenting Grace Commission results to Congress in 1984 was a waste of time (though remember that people still remember reports of $600 toilet seats and such), but presenting such results to the PEOPLE in 2010 will set off a firestorm among the electorate that will compel the politicians to change their ways or get removed from office by the people.

7) RC: Here in Massachusetts we have what some may call a one party state rule, do you believe this one party rule hinders the office of the Auditor?

KJ: Not at all. The Auditor, like the other five statewide constitutional officers and the legislature all work for the people of Massachusetts, not any political party. That is something most of them today seem to have forgotten once they got into office.

8) RC: Do you have any piece of advice for our readers as to how they can better inform themselves on the decision to vote for Auditor?

KJ: As with all voting, they should do their research. But with the race for Auditor they should ask themselves what they think the Auditor should be doing for the people, and if the official State Auditor should belong to either of the parties which control government. Looking at the growing field of likely candidates, that questioning will help make their choice obvious.

9) RC: Mr. Jain, thank you for sharing your valuable time it has been a pleasure, please tell us how can people learn more information about your or your campaign and whether you are looking for volunteers.

KJ: Thank you again for the opportunity to talk to you and your readers about my campaign -- my campaign team and I are very excited. We are most definitely looking for volunteers. For more information, or to volunteer, people should just email info@kamaljain.com and someone will get back to them right away.

An independent Auditor is a crucial component in reigning in the excesses of a state government whose budget is now approaching 50 billion dollars. A completely unbiased and objective source whose only interest is to serve the public and provide us the crucial information we need to make the right decision in respect to our own government. The current auditor’s presence in office of over 20 years should be a great concern to you, because like any other politician spending too much time in government one's effectiveness becomes heavily compromised. We need a change and Kamal Jain is the man capable of delivering this change.  RightCondition proudly endorses Kamal Jain for Auditor.

Contacting the campaign:
http://kamaljain.com/
info@kamaljain.com
+1 757 726 7098

Kamal Jain for Auditor
20 Butterfield St
Lowell MA 01854