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Archive for the ‘transparency’ Category

Secret Meetings And Closed Door Deals

I’m not sure if Bush used to hold more or less closed door meetings than Obama, because it was never something that I ever wondered about, because I always assumed that most negotiations were worked out privately, before being made public.

Obama of course made the whole transparency issue a huge one during his presidential campaign, so it’s perhaps only natural to be astonished that almost every article that one reads about Obama now starts with, or has the words, "secret meeting", "private meeting", or "behind closed doors" somewhere in the article.

What Did Obama Actually Promise?

Obama promised that he would post bills coming to him from Congress online for five days before signing them.

Has He Been Keeping His Promise?

Hardly, and that’s being overly kind.

At the time of writing, he has broken his promise forty-one times, and he signed two more bills into law last week within a day of receiving them:

The Korean War Veterans Recognition Act.
and,
Approving the renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003.

Obama signed his very first bill without posting it on the Internet for five days of public comment, and his second bill which was an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, that provides health coverage for low-income children was signed on Feb. 4, 2009, just hours after it was finalized in Congress.

The original raison d’etre behind President Obama’s "Sunlight Before Signing"

Was,

"This will give the American people a greater ability to review the bill, often many more than five days before the president signs it into law", and an additional intention of the bill was to ostensibly cause members of Congress and senators to,

a) Be far more reticent to introduce potentially controversial amendments.

b) Be unable to say that they had no time to read a proposed bill.

c) Be more able to defend the bills that they vote on.

However in a New York Times story entitled "The White House Changes the Terms of a Campaign Pledge About Posting Bills Online", which was published on June 22, 2009, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro told reporter Katherine Seelye,

"Once it is clear that a bill will be coming to the president’s desk, the White House will post the bill online",

and the comment was mostly seen as a White House effort to walk back from President Obama’s campaign pledge that he’d publicly post all submitted bills, for five days before signing them.

When the New York Times published the story, five bills had been presented to the president and were awaiting his signature, and four more were presented to him after the story’s publication.

All Nine Bills Became Law

But I can’t find any of them at Whitehouse.gov and if you can, then please enlighten the world.

More than 60% of the legislation that comes out of Congress waits a full five days for the president’s signature as a matter of course, and the only reason that they are not posted online, is Obama’s refusal to do, what he clearly promised that he would do.

If you feel moved by this matter, and want to make your voice heard then your signature on a petition at read the bill. would be most welcome.

Neil Barofsky, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), is due to deliver his report to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee tomorrow, Tuesday July 20th.

Barofsky, who is the government’s top bailout watchdog says that the total price tag for federal support stemming from the financial crisis could reach as much as $23.7 trillion in the after factoring in commitments from dozens of programs that were implemented throughout the federal government since 2007, and added that just the financial exposure of TARP and its related programs could reach $3 trillion.

He says that TARP, which started as a $700 billion bailout has expanded way beyond that;

“TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity. Moreover, TARP does not function in a vacuum but is rather part of the broader government efforts to stabilize the financial system”.

The estimate covers commitments that could have been made by the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Federal Housing Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs and other agencies.

In his report, Barofsky also says that the Treasury Department has repeatedly failed to adopt recommendations that his office believes would bring more transparency and accountability to the execution of the bailout.

In a written response, the Treasury again rejected that call saying, “Although it might be tempting to do so, it is not possible to say that investment of TARP dollars resulted in particular loans, investments or other activities by the recipient”.

The report found that fifteen banks had used funds that were acquired from the FDIC to buy weaker rivals, with the banks saying that “the acquisitions helped preserve banking services to customers”.

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