"How are the encroachments of the stronger to be prevented, or the wrongs of the weaker to be redressed, without an appeal to the people themselves, who, as the grantors of the commissions, can alone declare its true meaning and enforce its observance?"
- James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 49
Heather Anderson misses a key point in her editorial regarding NCUA's budget. The NCUA is an agency of the government. The government must conduct its business in the open. James Madison opined on it in 1788 in the federalist papers, and Congress codified this core principal 200 years later in 1976 when it passed the Sunshine Act.
Transparency provides a mechanism for checks and balances in an independent agency where there are none.
By approving and releasing its annual operating budget without a formal hearing, the NCUA refuses to include credit unions in a process that they ultimately fund. Credit unions fund the NCUA, and every dollar the agency spends originates from an American consumer.
With that in mind, NAFCU has consistently and vigorously advocated for complete budget transparency. We firmly believe that credit unions are entitled to know exactly how their money and their members' money is being spent. NAFCU has not only pushed for public budget hearings, but we have also urged the NCUA to release non-aggregated balance sheets for each fund that the agency administers.
While Ms. Anderson indicates that budget hearings are just for show, that does not need to be the case. Conducting a hearing is a mechanism for the consideration of ideas and the airing of different perspectives.
Ultimately, the NCUA is in complete control of how it spends credit union dollars to fulfill its mission – so why not take a moment to listen to the perspective of those entities it governs? The NCUA will be stronger for it. That is, if they have nothing to hide.
B. Dan Berger is president/CEO of NAFCU. He can be reached at 703-522-4770 or [email protected].
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