Mr. Transparency?

If you go to the Obama Internet site called recovery.gov, you would proudly see this graph showing the breakdown of the Stimulus Package. On top, you can clearly see that tax cuts make up the bulk of this $890 billion pig. But, this is truly being dishonest and hardly transparent. The $288 billion that is being shown as the top bar of this chart actually pales in comparison to $602 billion in spending that makes up the 7 bars under the category of tax relief. This is another example of the sleight of hand from the Obama Administration and not the truth. It is interesting that the Obama team has decided to breakdown the spending items and leave tax cuts alone. A more "truthful" bar chart would be:



It should be pointed out that many of the tax cuts that Obama is claiming under this plan can only be categorized as "maybe's" because they are highly dependent on the consumer running out and buying things like expensive electric cars in order to get that tax benefit. At a time when we are in a recession, buying big ticket items, like electric cars or solar powered systems, is probably more hopeful than likely.

If I hear, just one more time, that this is the most "transparent" government in the history of the United States, I'll throw up!

A Noble Effort He May Come To Regret

Yesterday, one of the first official acts by our new President was to pencil in an executive order by expanding the Freedom of Information Act and providing transparency within his Administration as to all those non-national security issues that are being planned or worked on. I applaud this noble effort. However, Mr. Obama may regret it later.

Washington D.C. is awash with sharks. And, those sharks would just love to take a bite out of any President's Administration. It isn't just his enemies that Mr. Obama should worry about. It can also be his supposed fellow Democrats that may want a leg up or need to feed their own egos by exposing any problems or controversy that are going on within his Administration. The weapon of choice, by all politicians, is always information. Mr. Obama may have just, figuratively, loaded that gun and put it out there for someone to pick up and shoot down his future plans and operations. That's the reason why the Bush Administration, and other experienced Administrations before him, have been so secretive about their plans and actions.

Beyond the political viciousness, the news media is always on the hunt for information that can be used as front page fodder in order to sell those rags they write for. Too much information being put out there can cause an avalanche of questions that can put any President and his staff off-balance by constantly having to explain things. For example, you only have to look to how detrimental the New York Times article was to the Bush administration when it reported on FISA (warrant-less wiretapping). Weeks were wasted in defending a program that was eventually passed by a majority of Senators in a Democratic Senate; but, only after they had juiced it for all the political gain they could get. Other disclosures by the "Times" and other rags were equally detrimental over the last 8 years.

Sadly, Mr. Obama naively thinks he will maintain ethical behavior without consequence. However, he's dealing with politicians and a news media who have "all" left their ethics in the garage from the very first day they were either sworn into public office or were given national politics as their news assignments. That's not just my opinion...it is a fact!