Another Example of Successful Change? (votes, Congress, ethic, legal)
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Just so you Obama supporters don't go ballistic, I am not blaming Obama but I will if he does not stop it. This is not the kind of change I think people voted for, it is just business as usual in DC. I had hoped Obama would be different and put an end to this. We will have to just wait and see.
AP IMPACT: Lobbyists skirt Obama's earmark ban
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's ban on earmarks in the $825 billion economic stimulus bill doesn't mean interest groups, lobbyists and lawmakers won't be able to funnel money to pet projects.
They're just working around it — and perhaps inadvertently making the process more secretive.
The result, as The Associated Press learned in interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and state and local officials, is a shadowy lobbying effort that may make it difficult to discern how hundreds of billions in federal money will be parceled out.
AP IMPACT: Lobbyists skirt Obama's earmark ban - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/the_influence_game_stimulus_lobbying - broken link)
Blame anybody you want, but during my lifetime every Presidential candidate from both parties has promised to clean up the mess and none have. Reagan pushed for the line item veto--which would go a long way toward countering the special-interest "pork" the lobbyists get added to every bill. Ford and Carter thought public funding of campaign finances would end the lobbyists influence. That's been a complete failure, counter-productive if anything. All it has done is eliminate some candidates very early in the Primaries. (Carter would have been eliminated if we'd had the same law back then). It was supposed to be funded by the check box on your tax return that nobody checks, together with a cap on private contributions. Since no money gets raised that way it comes out of the general fund. If you refuse the matching funds they can't eliminate you early, even if you don't win early. Anybody who accepts them these days better be as popular as Reagan or Roosevelt, in which case they wouldn't need them anyway. And the lobbyists remain as strong as ever. I don't have a solution, and I'll be real surprised if Obama or anyone else has one.
I think what some are missing here is that the new and different lobbying techniques are the result of pressure applied by the new administration. That's a good thing. Lobbyists can change tactics and those tactics can be met with new regulation.
You can't put in new rules and expect the lobbyists to go "shucks. You caught us. Guess we'll go away." They'll try to weasel their way into policy. The point is that their interaction is being curbed, to one extent or another, rather than being ignored or embraced. The fact that a new president cannot stamp out lobbyists in a week is reality. The fact that he's trying to, at the very least, reduce their effectiveness is also reality.
I say it's a good thing there weren't any lobbying scandals in recent GOP administrations. Remember that Jack Abramoff - the Democratic lobbyist who went to jail?
Does it matter if other administrations did badly...
I guess the left are simply going to make excuses for everything...
Did the left destroy America? Did the left do anything they have to make excuses for? like an illegal war? Hate all you want, Obama has nothing to be ashamed of.
Instead of attacking the messenger or any other knee jerk reaction,why not look dispassionately at the info and see if what is said is true and IF it is to hold your leader's feet to the fire?
Obama is just a man,and there is a VERY good chance he will be wrong or be tricked and it is up to you to try and keep him on the platform he was elected on.
Does it matter if other administrations did badly...
I guess the left are simply going to make excuses for everything...
Well what's your solution? As I said, I don't have one, and neither has any past President of either Party. I don't think it can be fixed in a free market economy. Do you? I'm glad he identifies it as a problem, and I'm glad he's giving it some priority among the host of issues before him. He is the most open of any President in my lifetime to suggestions from both Parties so if you have so much as a single useful thought, now would be a good time. On the other hand, if he simply fails to do what all others that have tried also failed to do I'm not going to define his Presidency as a failure over it. Above all I think report cards are best handed out at the end of the semester, not in the first week.
Well what's your solution? As I said, I don't have one, and neither has any past President of either Party. I don't think it can be fixed in a free market economy. Do you? I'm glad he identifies it as a problem, and I'm glad he's giving it some priority among the host of issues before him. He is the most open of any President in my lifetime to suggestions from both Parties so if you have so much as a single useful thought, now would be a good time. On the other hand, if he simply fails to do what all others that have tried also failed to do I'm not going to define his Presidency as a failure over it. Above all I think report cards are best handed out at the end of the semester, not in the first week.
This is about earmarks being added to the plan...typical porkbarrel spending.
The way around it?
By Obama stating it will be vetoed.
As to your assertion Obama is the most open of Presidents,he has only been POTUS for eight days!!!
He wasn't exactly forthcoming about his life during the campaign either.
My solution is to get the American people away from a 'culture' based on debt and credit....because it is unsustainable.
You can't vote for the same politician and put him in the same place and have him run the same style of leadership to the same people and expect change. If you wanted change you'd have to go completely out of DC and get all new faces with no ties to anybody currently there. It's just not going to happen.
Maybe in 4 years, somebody will really run on a platform of change and mean it. I think we'll be bad enough off to have that have a chance of happening.
Jones is Blagojevich's closest and strongest political ally. You know - the same Blagojevich that is facing impeachment and possibly a federal indictment... Obama's ties to Jones caused him to balk on the Illinois ethics bill. Obama didn't act until publicly called out by a Chicago Sun-Times article.
"SPRINGFIELD -- While Barack Obama left an imprint on two major ethics packages as a state senator, he ducked a plea Thursday to use his influence to safeguard landmark state legislation barring big government contractors from making campaign contributions.
In the middle of a simmering Statehouse ethics battle is Obama's "political godfather," Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago), who triggered questions Thursday about whether he may allow the legislation to die after the Nov. 4 election.
..."As a presidential candidate, this is small potatoes. But as Illinois' U.S. senator, this is a place he could come in and quickly clean up some of the damage and serve his state," said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, which has pushed for the donation restrictions for three years.
..."A 30-second phone call to the Illinois Senate president could yield huge dividends to this state," she said"
Obama ducks call to push reform in Illinois :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Politics (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1159383,CST-NWS-leg12web.article - broken link)
Even with public scrutiny on the matter, Obama still didn't make the phone call begging Jones to call the Ethics bill for a vote in the Illinois Senate until the following week - much too long of a hesitation for an 'ethics reformer' considering the bill was about to legally expire.
Obama balked at being forced to go against Jones/Blagojevich, but was publicly exposed on his lack of taking a stand on the Illinois ethics reform bill after specifically being requested to do so.
Thank goodness he's out of there, then...but there could have been no better place to cut his teeth.
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