Government must report its constituency’s balance sheet, because periodic income statements alone don’t give the essential context for decision-making.
Balance sheets show the cumulative result of past decisions. Choosing investment priorities while blind to current and future assets and liabilities, is like trying to make a journey without knowing where you start.
Because money alone is a poor measure of happiness, constituency balance sheets should include human, health, and natural (and ?societal/social?) capital in addition to financial capital.
This would have the advantage of showing how — for example — under-investing in
This generally hasn’t been done until now, because it is more difficult than reporting income and expenditure.
cp. Bias to measure that which is easily available.
Focusing on balanced budgets alone (e.g. U.K.’s Local Government Finance Act (1992), s. 31A (2)-(4) that require English local authorities to make balanced budgets)
? c.f. consittutional Schludenbremsen in Germany and Switzerland?