Most Transparent Administration EVER!

[Sam_Stone]

…If by ‘transparent’ you mean “Predictably focused on hiding important information and ramming through legislation before people have a chance to debate it.”

Seriously, isn’t this stuff starting to bother you Obama supporters?

First, the ‘sunlight’ pledge went out the window. No more 5 days online before a bill can come up for a vote. In fact, this administration is acting exactly opposite to how Obama promised it would act: secret deliberations, last-minute amendments added to bills, 3 AM votes, and the cultivating of a perpetual ‘crisis’ which demands that everything be voted on immediately before anyone has a chance to even read what’s in the bill.

Then the administration reneged on its promise to end warrantless wiretapping.

Then Obama, who promised to clean up Washington and end business as usual, started firing inspector generals who investigated anyone too close to the administration, or who were too critical of policies.

Then the Obama Administration started protecting ‘executive privilege’ in exactly the same fashion that drove the Bush haters nuts.

Then this ‘transparent’ administration started stacking the deck in the press room, only answering questions that were pre-screened from friendly sources. They have been doing this so blatantly than even Helen Thomas went ballistic on them.

But at least Obama’s closing Gitmo, right? Not so fast. The administration is now delaying the Guantanamo Bay review by six months. There goes the promise to close it within a year. Anyone willing to take bets that Gitmo will still be open two years from now?

And in the latest news from the land of sunlight and transparency, the Obama administration is delaying the mid-session economic report until August 15 - almost certainly because it contains a whole bunch of bad news about next year’s deficit. Obama’s trying to ram through health care most transparently - before the public has a chance to really understand it and voice their concerns to their elected representatives. Giving people actual economic information critical to the decision about whether it’s affordable just won’t do. Not when you’ve got important plans and the people are getting in the way.

Seriously, if you’re not sure which way the Obama administration will swing on a given issue, there’s one rule of thumb that so far has been infallible: If one option increases the power of the executive and the other doesn’t, pick the former.

This is the administration which reflexively backed a Marxist leader in Honduras who was overtly attempting to subvert the constitution of that country. And which recently appointed a revolutionary Marxist to be the new ‘green jobs czar’.

So much for centrism. So much for transparency. If anyone wants to present the other side, let’s hear it. Otherwise, call it witnessing.

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this Presidency.” - Barack Obama

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

Yes, these things are extremely disappointing to me. I think they have a great deal to do with his sagging approval ratings.

I just recently saw the movie W. for the first time. It made me doubly sick to relive the events of the Bush administration and to feel that we haven’t done much to rectify the problems. I’m mildly optimistic, but I think ultimately we can’t expect anyone with centrist tendencies to undo all the wrong that has been done.

ETA: I’m assuming that by coming up with this stuff that is supposed to bother people that you also are bothered by them, meaning that you are bothered by the actions of the Bush administration. I wonder why this wasn’t clearer from you, you know, all through the actual Bush administration? I also wonder what you would suggest would be done to correct the problem? Elect a conservative again?

Or is this all some kind of misguided tu quoque based on a faulty belief that other people are as reflexively sheeplike as Bush supporters were?

[athelas]

As Earl Devaney, stimulus czar, said:

NJ: Isn’t transparency sometimes dangerous to those in power?

Devaney: I think politicians have got their heads around the good sides of transparency. What they haven’t got their minds around is the downside of transparency. Come October 11, there are going to be things up on that Web site that embarrass people, clearly. I don’t think it is one party or the other. Everyone is going to be embarrassed to some extent.

NJ: What about the potential that this flood of data will be used by opponents of the president, or the stimulus plan?

Devaney: **I thought about that two months ago. It is kind of a scary thing to think about. We could start, I don’t want to say a revolution, but we could start a big kerfuffle in this town in October. **If you think the political environment right now is ablaze, I’m assuming that people will see a lot of good things when they see this [as well as bad things]. I think that it is going to take a while for the American psyche to understand that this has been going on forever. What they are going to see in October, those that have worked in government long enough — I know the way this spending looks, because I’ve seen the underbelly, but I don’t think the American people have seen it yet. It is a sausage factory.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I pretty much don’t give a fuck. Look at what the alternative was.

It’s hilarious to see conservatives all of a sudden so concerned about executive power, though.

And fuck centrism. I WANT Marxism. I think Obama is way too conservative.

Go Government Health Care!!!

Seriously, are threads like us supposed to make us pine for Sarah Palin? Give it up.

[John_Mace]

I voted for Obama, and I’m still glad I did. I didn’t believe he’d follow through on many of his campaign pledges, and I didn’t think he was going to be able to change Washington all that much. He inherited a mess from Bush, and it’s going to take quite awhile to do that. I’m patient-- at least for now.

One of my biggest worries is how he’s going to handle Afghanistan. That place is a mess, and getting messier. I don’t know what the right solution is, but we have to do a lot more than just increase troops and drop more bombs. Frankly, I’m not so sure we shouldn’t be getting the hell out of there as we will have to do sooner or later.

[John_Mace]

Also, Sam, you should give cites for each of your assertions. Otherwise they sound a lot like stuff just taken from some right-wing blog.

[athelas]

Cite:

Earlier this week, the White House officially abandoned President Obama’s “Sunlight before Signing” pledge (which I discussed here and here). As the NYT reported:

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised that once a bill was passed by Congress, the White House would post it online for five days before he signed it.

“When there’s a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government’s doing,” Mr. Obama said as a candidate, telling voters he would make government more transparent and accountable.

When he took office in January, his team added that in posting nonemergency bills, it would “allow the public to review and comment” before Mr. Obama signed them.

Five months into his administration, Mr. Obama has signed two dozen bills, but he has almost never waited five days. On the recent credit card legislation, which included a controversial measure to allow guns in national parks, he waited just two. . . .

Now, in a tacit acknowledgment that the campaign pledge was easier to make than to fulfill, the White House is changing its terms. Instead of starting the five-day clock when Congress passes a bill, administration officials say they intend to start it earlier and post the bills sooner.

Then later:

A few weeks ago, the Obama Administration officially abandoned the President’s “Sunlight before Signing” campaign pledge that the White House would post all legislation passed by Congress for at least five days before the President would sign it. In making this announcement, the Administration maintained that it would comply with the spirit, if not the letter, of the original commitment by posting legislation on the White House site once it became clear legislation would eventually pass and make it to the President’s desk. This new commitment, they suggested, would actually provide even greater sunlight, as some bills would be available for review earlier and for a longer time. Well, this promise is no longer operative either, as the Cato Institute’s Jim Harper details. Since the White House announced its new sunlight policy, nine additional pieces of legislation have been signed into law by the President and yet, as of yesterday, not one had been posted on the White House web site.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I think it’s always kind of kindergarten to start accusing a President you don’t like of not living up to campign ideals or keeping every promise. No President ever has, it’s impossible, and things are always going to look different once you’re behind that desk.

I voted based on Obama’s temperment, intelligence, general ideology and judgement. I don’t care about nickel and dime shit like “sunshine laws.” I want socialized health care, liberal activist judges, massive taxes on rich people, an end to theocratic interference with the government and an end to illegal occupations of other countries. I’m at least getting some of what I want. If McCain had one the election, Palin would have poisoned him already and we’d all be singing hymns at gunpoint right now.

[Sinaijon]

Don’t forget about Bagram, which was quite a reversal from his position on Gitmo.

[yorick73]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

I voted based on Obama’s temperment, intelligence, general ideology and judgement. I don’t care about nickel and dime shit like “sunshine laws.” I want socialized health care, liberal activist judges, massive taxes on rich people, an end to theocratic interference with the government and an end to illegal occupations of other countries. I’m at least getting some of what I want. If McCain had one the election, Palin would have poisoned him already and we’d all be singing hymns at gunpoint right now.

WOW…you are batshit crazy… but at least you are honest about what you want. I think the more honest Obama gets the lower his poll numbers get. The vast majority of americans are NOT that far to the left and Obama knows it. He’s trying to ram these bills down our throats before we know what hit us.

[Simplicio]

@yorick73

The vast majority of americans are NOT that far to the left and Obama knows it. He’s trying to ram these bills down our throats before we know what hit us.

Eh? It’s not like Obama never mentioned Healthcare reform during the campaign. And the debate on reform has been going on in Congress for months. What specific bills do you feel he’s trying to “ram down our throats before we know what hit us”.

[Shodan]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

And fuck centrism. I WANT Marxism. I think Obama is way too conservative.

Go Government Health Care!!!

Well, at least we have the admission that government health care is semi-Marxist.

And this shit -

I think it’s always kind of kindergarten to start accusing a President you don’t like of not living up to campign ideals or keeping every promise.

right after Hentor’s remarkably lame-ass attempt at the only comeback he can come up with. Entertaining, at least. So is the gall of the Obama cultists accusing Bush supporters of being sheep.

Regards,
Shodan

[yorick73]

@Simplicio

Eh? It’s not like Obama never mentioned Healthcare reform during the campaign. And the debate on reform has been going on in Congress for months. What specific bills do you feel he’s trying to “ram down our throats before we know what hit us”.

Mentioning a bill is not the same as learning about the details. Universal health care sounds wonderful to the uninformed. But, when you tell them its not free and that the government may not allow granny to get that new hip because of her age, they start to wake up.
Bills he’s trying to ram down our throats or already has: cap and trade (in the house), stimulus spending, and health care. I’m sure I’m leaving something out but these are pretty fucking huge. And, debating reform is much different than voting on a bill that nobody has read.

[Sam_Stone]

@John_Mace

Also, Sam, you should give cites for each of your assertions. Otherwise they sound a lot like stuff just taken from some right-wing blog.

I cited the last two policies, because they were new. And I didn’t cite ‘right wing blogs’, and I’m not sure why you think I would. I almost never cite blogs. I didn’t cite the other things because they’ve been debated multiple times on this board and have been in the news for months, so I assumed that cites for them were unnecessary.

[Sam_Stone]

Oh, and I forgot a new one:

TARP failing transparency test:

Democrats joined Republicans in blasting the Treasury Department for failing to live up to its promises of transparency in tracking the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

“The taxpayers now have a $700 billion spending program that’s being run under the philosophy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” said Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, after receiving a report by Neil Barofsky, TARP’s special inspector general.

Barofsky was the sole witness before Towns’ panel Tuesday, testifying on the results of his office’s quarterly report. The IG report ripped Treasury for failing to adopt the watchdog’s earlier recommendations to beef up transparency.

As a result, Barofsky testified, taxpayers aren’t being told what most TARP recipients are doing with their money, what their investments are worth and will never be told exactly how their taxpayer dollars are being used.

That would be a Democrat in the House lambasting the Obama Treasury department.

[Simplicio]

Bills he’s trying to ram down our throats or already has: cap and trade (in the house), stimulus spending, and health care. I’m sure I’m leaving something out but these are pretty fucking huge. And, debating reform is much different than voting on a bill that nobody has read.

Again, Obama ran on cap-and-trade, health care reform and fiscal stimulus. He and part of the current Dem majorities in both houses won on those issues, health care reform has been debated for months and will continue to be debated for several more. The current draft of the bill is here (pdf), if people haven’t read it who want to, I don’t really see how that’s Obama’s fault. The debate on cap-and-trade legislation will almost certainly go on into next year and perhaps beyond.

[Rysto]

@Sam_Stone

…If by ‘transparent’ you mean “Predictably focused on hiding important information and ramming through legislation before people have a chance to debate it.”

Seriously, isn’t this stuff starting to bother you Obama supporters?

Sam, I find it very interesting that you’ve never started such a thread about Stephen Harper, who’s done the exact same thing in Canada. It couldn’t be because Harper’s a Conservative, now could it?

[athelas]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

I voted based on Obama’s temperment, intelligence, general ideology and judgement. I don’t care about nickel and dime shit like “sunshine laws.” I want socialized health care, liberal activist judges, massive taxes on rich people, an end to theocratic interference with the government and an end to illegal occupations of other countries. I’m at least getting some of what I want. If McCain had one the election, Palin would have poisoned him already and we’d all be singing hymns at gunpoint right now.

Yeah, and you made the right choice - assuming you think that your vote matters, etc. We’re talking to people who aren’t radical leftists and voted for Obama because he sounded good and made some nice pledges. He ain’t keeping 'em.

[elucidator]

What about the people who voted for Obama because because McCain was unacceptable?

[Sam_Stone]

Cap and Trade passed the House in what, a week? And 300 pages were added to the bill by Waxman, AFTER it was passed through committee, and on the evening of the vote.

As for Obama campaigning on cap and trade, that’s true. But what else did he campaign on?

• No tax increases for anyone earning under $250,000.
• Tax cuts for 95% of Americans.
• Tax cuts for small businesses
• Net spending decreases.
• Transparency in all things. Bills posted a minimum of five days BEFORE a vote.
• No ex-lobbyists in his administration.
• Bipartisanship. “Republicans have good ideas too. We need to listen to all voices to succeed.”

Those are the promises of a fiscal conservative and a centrist.

This is what Obama said in the third debate:

Now, what I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut…I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.
…
We need to eliminate a whole host of programs that don’t work. And I want to go through the federal budget line by line, page by page, programs that don’t work, we should cut. Programs that we need, we should make them work better.

Well, after that line-by-line scrutiny of the federal budget, Obama found a whopping $100 million in spending cuts. Out of a 3.5 trillion dollar budget. How much is that? Harvard’s Greg Mankiw explains:

“To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall,” Mankiw wrote. “How much would he or she announce that spending had be cut? By $3 over the course of the year–approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year.”

But hey, it’s a start, right? Nope. Just another broken promise.

White House Misses Deadline on Spending Cuts Report

On April 20, President Obama challenged his Cabinet to cut $100 million in spending over the next 90 days.

The deadline came – and went – without a report from the White House on whether or not that promise was fulfilled.

Asked about the spending cuts, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that information still was being compiled.

“Those are being reviewed now, and we’ll release something in the coming days,” Gibbs told the daily White House briefing.

At time the challenge was announced, critics said $100 million in savings was a small amount on the context of the federal budget.

“Any amount of savings is obviously welcome,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said in April. “But [$100 million is] about the average amount we’ll spend every single day just covering the interest on the stimulus package that we passed earlier this year.”

So, the guy who promises net spending cuts, pay-as-you-go, and who promised to clean out all the chaff in the federal government instead presides over $800 billion in new federal pork spending, and then with a straight face announces his deep cuts - which amount to one day’s interest on the money borrowed to pay for the spending program he just signed. And then fails to deliver on that.

It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.