Good Ideas in Congress You've Never Heard of

Ezra had a piece about 5 bills in Congress that probably will not pass, but are great ideas that will have a relatively small but real, positive impact.  This is one I've liked for a while:

The taxpayer receipt

When I buy groceries, I get a receipt. When I buy a chair whose name I can’t pronounce from Ikea, I get a receipt. But once a year, I send a whole heap of money to the federal government and I get . . .nothing. But it would be trivial for Treasury to provide me with an itemized receipt showing how my money was spent. Then, for good or for bad, I’d know.

The White House created an online tool where you can enter your income and tax payments and see what your receipt would look like (make your own at www.whitehouse.gov/taxreceipt), but there are bipartisan bills in both the House and the Senate to go even further and have Treasury send all taxpayers the receipt they deserve.