Tag Archives: Transparency

News

Darrell Issa and the Republican plan to clean up corruption

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I am happy that Boehner and McConnell are going to push the ban on earmarks, but who is going to fix the corruption, fraud, and lack of transparency elsewhere in government?

Consider this article from Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

You may never have heard of Rep. Darrell Issa, but you will soon. Republicans have tasked him with cleaning up four years of Democratic misrule and misconduct. It’s a big job, but somebody simply must do it.

For proof, look no further than Tuesday’s dirty debacle with Rep. Charles Rangel, who walked out of a congressional hearing before being found guilty by the House ethics committee on 11 of 13 charges of misconduct.

[…]As the head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, California Republican Issa has promised aggressive investigations of misconduct, wherever it occurs. We think it’s long overdue.

[…]The list of troubling government activities that should be investigated is a long one. Issa’s already looking into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And he’s been openly critical of the Obama stimulus’ lack of controls and poor accounting practices.

He — or other GOP committees — may also look into AIG and the other bank bailouts, and answer who got money and why.

Then there’s the Countrywide VIP program, in which some Congress members got favorable mortgages. And don’t forget the $700 billion TARP program, the government’s takeovers of GM and Chrysler, the links between the left-wing community organizing group ACORN and the Democrats, and even U.S. Minerals Management Service misconduct prior to the BP oil blowout.

I would really like to see an investigation of where the bailout money and stimulus money went.

News

A closer look at Obama’s 1-billion dollar “stimulus” earmark

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From the Heritage Foundation. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) likes to say that Congressional earmarking has become the gateway drug to federal overspending.  Is there any better evidence of this theory then President Barack Obama’s $1 billion earmark for a special project in Illinois that was slipped into his failed $862 billion stimulus?  According to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, the Obama Administration awarded $1 billion on August 5th for a Carbon Capture and Storage Network in Illinois:

Today’s announcement will help ensure the US remains competitive in a carbon constrained economy, creating jobs while reducing greenhouse gas pollution.  This investment in the world’s first, commercial-scale, oxy-combustion power plant will help to open up the over $300 billion market for coal unit repowering and position the country as a leader in an important part of the global clean energy economy

This project was an earmark in the stimulus according to a Washington Post story dated March 6, 2009:

Deep inside the economic stimulus package is a $1 billion prize that, in five short words, shows the benefits of being in power in Washington. The funding, for “fossil energy research and development,” is likely to go to a power plant in a small Illinois town, a project whose longtime backers include a group of powerful lawmakers from the state, among them President Obama.

Stimulus seems to be a way of rewarding the people who voted for you with money from the people who didn’t vote for you. At least, that’s the way it is for Obama, apparently.

News

Freedom of Information Act request processing delayed by Democrats

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Story from the Washington Post. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

For at least a year, the Homeland Security Department detoured hundreds of requests for federal records to senior political advisers for highly unusual scrutiny, probing for information about the requesters and delaying disclosures deemed too politically sensitive, according to nearly 1,000 pages of internal e-mails obtained by The Associated Press.

The department abandoned the practice after AP investigated. Inspectors from the department’s Office of Inspector General quietly conducted interviews last week to determine whether political advisers acted improperly.

The Freedom of Information Act, the main tool forcing the government to be more open, is designed to be insulated from political considerations. Anyone who seeks information through the law is supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose confidential decision-making in certain areas.

But in July 2009, Homeland Security introduced a directive requiring a wide range of information to be vetted by political appointees for “awareness purposes,” no matter who requested it. The government on Wednesday estimated fewer than 500 requests underwent such political scrutiny; the Homeland Security Department received about 103,000 total requests for information last fiscal year.

Career employees were ordered to provide Secretary Janet Napolitano‘s political staff with information about the people who asked for records – such as where they lived, whether they were private citizens or reporters – and about the organizations where they worked.

If a member of Congress sought such documents, employees were told to specify Democrat or Republican.

This, despite President Barack Obama‘s statement that federal workers should “act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation” under FOIA, and Attorney General Eric Holder‘s assertion: “Unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles have no place in the new era of open government.”

The special reviews at times delayed the release of information to Congress, watchdog groups and the news media for weeks beyond the usual wait, even though the directive specified the reviews should take no more than three days.

The foot-dragging reached a point that officials worried the department would get sued, one e-mail shows.

A new era of transparency and accountability! Not at all like paranoid Richard Nixon! No, no, no!

And we’re still operating without a budget – they don’t want to say how large the deficits are before the election!