In this day of partisan politics, there are few things that almost all of us can agree on. One of those things is holding our elected officials accountable and knowing how they spend our money. To this end, Rick Mirabito (D-PA District 83) has sponsored a bill to establish Penn-GAP–an online repository for information on where the money goes. PA House Bill No. 1880 “creates the Pennsylvania Government Accountability Portal (Penn-GAP) Act, which provides for the creation of a searchable, public Internet website to contain state expenditures and revenues, and other state government-related information.” This website would be available 24 hours a day and there would be no cost for accessing it. Included in the information would be all investments of public funds, all tax credit programs, a list of businesses that fail to pay the sales and use tax, and a list of all revocations and suspensions of professional and occupational licenses, registrations or certificates. Other data that you could peruse would be completed audit reports of state agencies, a listing of all state agencies’ fulltime positions, and credit card statements for each state agency. The provisions of the Penn-GAP Act would be enforced by the Treasury Department, which would also collect and publish the data. Funding would be appropriated by the General Assembly, which means taxpayer dollars would pay for it. But wouldn’t it be worth it to see exactly what other things we are paying for? HB 1880 has already unanimously passed the State House of Representatives and is now before the State Senate. If you have an opinion on this act, call your PA State Senators and let them know how you would like them to vote.