Seeing through promises of transparency

Remember the idea of "Sunlight before Signing?" That was Presidential candidate Obama's promise to... now, wait, how did that go again? You can read for yourself:

"Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."

President Obama has signed a land conservation bill into law - the third piece of non-emergency legislation he has enacted without a five-day comment period. And it's probably a good thing he did - as the Heritage Foundation notes, the bill contains some extreme provisions. A lengthy public comment period might tarnish proponents' image of the bill as a simple land protection act.

Similarly, during confirmation hearings for her nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius indicated possible fast tracks for health care reform. Without a doubt, this measure (which can't help but be controversial no matter what it says) will also be deemed "emergency legislation" when it gets to the President's desk.

It all makes the pre-election calls for transparency look like transparent attempts at positioning. When President Obama picks up his pen, it apparently goes where the sunlight don't shine.

CIO back on the job

Vivek Kundra came back to the Obama Administration this week - his brief leave of absence came on the heels of an FBI raid of his old office and two arrests.

Before his gig as the Chief Information Officer of the country, Kundra served as the Chief Technology Officer for the District of Columbia. He wasn't the target of the FBI investigation, but his information systems security officer was arrested on bribery charges.

Privacy and online security will be among the biggest communication issues faced by the Obama Administration - with Google, a key Obama Administration ally, at the center of the storm. When taken along with the former lobbyists appointed to departments they used to lobby and cabinet nominees who couldn't be bothered paying taxes, the trend of lip service over ethics is more than a little disturbing.

Contractual bonuses? F*** you, pay me.

"Now he's got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with a bill, go to Paulie. Trouble with cops, deliveries, Tommy, he calls Paulie. But now he has to pay Paulie."

-Goodfellas

I'm not thrilled that AIG is using $165 million in taxpayer dollars to fund bonuses. I'm even more mad that the government is bailing out businesses without checking where the money is going. But taking government bailout money is a little like taking money from the mob to keep your business afloat.

The AIG saga began in September, when the insurer asked for $85 billion, and continued in November, when the government gave them even more. AIG turned heads soon after with an executive retreat, and cancelled a second only after intense criticism. And now, it turns out, AIG has awarded lush bonuses to the folks who ran them into the ground - bonuses that were part of contracts signed a while back and which AIG is legally forced to honor. Clearly, they weren't worth a bailout to begin with.

"Business bad? F*** you, pay me. Had a fire? F*** you, pay me."

But President Obama and Congress are asking AIG to retract the bonuses - which would, of course, open them up for lawsuits that could be potentially more expensive. In essence, they're changing the terms of the bailout after handing out the money - and there's not much AIG can do about it now.

"Also, Paulie could do anything - like run up bills on the joint's credit. And why not? Nobody's going to pay for it anyway."

The currency of politics isn't money, but votes, and every politician only cares about re-election and legacy. The grandstanding by Congressional leaders, the President, and New York Attorney General/Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo is meant to win votes rather than stabilize a business.

Given those divergent goals of business people and politicians, the bailouts could wind up being more trouble for AIG than they were in before.

"Then, finally, when there's nothing left, when you can't borrow another buck from the bank, you bust the joint out. You light a match."

What to say when YOU get audited

The Politico Mafioso featured a great video from special Hot Air correspondent Jason Mattera asking Rep. Charlie Rangel about the perks of being a Congressman. The Congressman is less than amused:

Post-partisanship means never

The morning news was abuzz with video of President Obama's reactions to accusations that his "stimulus bill" is just a pork spending bill: "What do you think a stimulus is? That's the whole point."

That's refreshing honesty, and it would have been nice to hear the same candor last year when he promised to work with Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Though there have been attempts by moderate Senators from both parties to reach across the aisle, Obama's team of die-hards see no reason to engage in such niceties.

This may be a departure from campaign rhetoric, but it is consistent with Obama's "I won, you lost, I make the rules" brand of "cooperation"over the last two weeks. Despite the misgivings of fiscally responsible Democrats, he has a big enough cadre of his own team behind him and eager to push out a bill. "Has bipartisanship been a failure? So far it isn't working," claimed Chuck Schumer. The left has enough votes that they don't need moderates and conservatives.

Obama remarked last night that the American people didn't vote for "petty politics." It sounds like we're getting that anyway.

Taxes? Slipped my mind...

Ladies and gentlemen, your next Obama appointment - the actual position doesn't matter, since he already has the talking points down pat:

Nice going, boys, you're playing last week's tape

February 2: America wakes up to the news that Tom Daschle didn't pay $140K of his taxes, and for some reason that may cause trouble with his nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services. This comes on the heels of Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner's tax controversy.

It all sounds so familiar...

Well, ok, maybe just a few more, but after that NO MORE LOBBYISTS!

In assembling his team, President Obama has been staunch in his public statements that lobbyists would not find a revolving door from their private sector work into his administration.

His administration? Not quite as staunch. Spokesman Robert Gibbs has already admitted that there may be "reasonable exceptions" to the no-lobbyist rule for folks like Bill Lynn (who was a lobbyist for a defense contractor before being named to the #2 spot in the Department of Defense) and Bill Corr (the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services who used to lobby the department of Health and Human Services). Gibbs claimed that each could assume their positions under waivers to the ethics rules.

Could Richard Nixon have summed it up any better? ("Well, if the President does it, that means it's not illegal.")

Instead of the political grandstanding with sweeping regulations he didn't intend to follow anyway, President Obama should have pursued a different strategy that he has been claiming all along: transparency. A simple index of any previous lobbying activity by any member of the Administration - available online - would have allowed our new President a chance to make a statement against DC influence peddling without looking like a hypocrite.

Harlem's Tax Revolution begins

With the mainstream media in full-scale Obama Love mode, it might seem Republican ideas like simplifying the tax code have fallen by the wayside. Luckily, filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney has taken to the streets of Harlem and talked to the constituents of House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangle (who's had his own problems with the tax code). Maloney shows just how wide an appeal these ideas have.

And now for something completely different...

Happy Friday.