More specifically, all that citizens should have to do to know where their tax dollars are going is to review Congress’s constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
In fact, the Founding States had not only established the federal Senate, but had given control of the Senate uniquely to state lawmakers. The idea was that senators were expected to protect their respective states by killing bills which not only stole state powers, but also stole state revenues associanted with those powers.
Evidence of this is the Supreme Court’s clarification that Conress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially any issue which Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
But as a consequence of the ill-conceived 17th Amendment, low-information citizens go home and watch football after voting for their favorite senators, oblivious to the major problem that their corrupt senators are working in cahoots with the corrupt House to pass unconstitutional bills which steal state powers and state revenues as the Founding States had feared.
The 2016 elections should not be about electing a new president but repealing 17A.
The 17th Amendment needs to disappear.
The 17th makes it much easier for a corporatist government to exist.
It centralizes lobbying efforts to D.C. instead of having to spread them out over 50 state legislatures.
Its much easier to buy a Senator that way.