What Transparency and Accountability in Washington D.C.?

Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: While campaigning, President Barack Obama made a number of pledges about bringing more transparency and accountability to Washington, DC, but little of that has showed up with his premier accomplishment so far, the stimulus bill. In a ceremony preceding his singing of the bill in Denver yesterday, Obama said, “With a recovery package of this size comes a responsibility to assure every taxpayer that we are being careful with the money they work so hard to earn. . . . We want transparency and accountability throughout this process.”

However Byron York noted in The Examiner, so far transparency and accountability has been more about showmanship than sunlight. York pointed out that last year, “Obama complained that ‘too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them.’” Yet the final $787 billion stimulus bill was hammered out behind closed doors and then rushed to a vote in both chambers less than 24 hours after it was written. Byron York put it well, “The period in which the public needed sunlight was before the bill was passed, not before it was signed.”

With such a hastily written and approved bill, we’re now seeing what is going to be just the beginning of people discovering problems with the legislation. Politico reports today that even Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is apparently upset about “a provision hidden in the stimulus that makes it tough for New York’s banks to hire foreign workers through the H-1B visa program.” Of course, Schumer, a strong proponent of the bill, is known for paltering and for attempts to distract others from the bigger picture. But it is true, we do not know what troubling issues will be discovered in the coming months and years?

Obama lost his opportunity to be a president honest "to his own words," when he did not veto the stimulus bill and return it to the Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi with the words, "No Pork, No Pet Last Minute Projects, and more transparency - give the public and the minority party more time to review and comment on the bill." But this was not to be. The liberal socialists have shown themselves and are in now in full control of the once great Democratic party. The words "conservative democrat" is now an oxymoron. The expanding dark cloud of socialism has settled over Washington, D.C., and it is spreading across America.

---

Tags: accountability, government transparency, socialism, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!