Alec Jacobs holds President Obama accountable for his promises during the campaign.
Alec Jacobs, Staff Writer
Ideology: Very Conservative | Writing from: Washington DC
Obama the campaigner (keep in mind, he is a very different person than Obama the president) had a lot to say on the trail. Most of those things I couldn’t stand: socialized medicine, pulling troops out of Iraq, closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, etc., etc. Yet there was one promise (and maybe more that I can’t think of) made by Obama the campaigner that I admired: his pledge to make the Federal Government more transparent, in large part by posting the full text of any bill before Congress on the Internet for a period of five days of debate and discussion.
Of course, this never came to be.
In just his first few days as president, Congress voted on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, and Obama signed it into law on January 29, 2009, making it the first act he would sign as commander-in-chief. What about those five days for discussion? Yeah…they didn’t exactly happen.
Political opponents weren’t the only ones to pick up on this broken promise. Several newspapers criticized the President for breaking his promise so soon, as usually politicians wait at least a couple of weeks before breaking major campaign promises. Not Obama! The White House issued a statement through a spokesperson, and said that they would implement the policy “soon” due to issues with implementation and the Congressional Calendar.
Eh. I didn’t really buy it. And I was right not to. The Democrats in Congress voted “yes” on the $787 billion stimulus package (not a single Republican member of the House voted in favor) after the bill had been in their grimy hands for only a few hours. Obama signed it into law almost immediately. Again, critics of the president wondered what happened to that promise we had heard so much about during the campaign. This time, the White House decided to use the excuse that this stimulus bill was an “absolute emergency,” and that posting the bill online for discussion, as had been previously promised, would put our economy at risk. And they accuse Republicans of using scare tactics – Ha!
Now, with various health care reform proposals on the proverbial table, we again wonder whether Obama will finally decide to keep his promise. No Congressional Calendar issues now, as these bills have yet to be scheduled for votes. It isn’t an emergency either – even if you think health care reform is urgent, five days certainly won’t matter when these proposals don’t go into effect for at least a year.
Nancy Pelosi claims with a smile (can she make a claim with any other expression?) that any bill will be posted for 72 hours before Congress takes a vote. Will Obama follow suit and finally keep his promise to post the voted-on bill online for five days before he signs it into law? Will he really provide the ‘transparency’ he spoke of when he was still running for office?
Don’t hold your breath.
It seems as if two favorite words of politicians are crisis and emergency. If something is an “absolute emergency” they have a excuse to break promises, violate the Constitution, ect. ect.. It would be interesting to talk to a political consultant such as Frank Luntz just to see the increase of the use of the words in politics. I would not doubt that after a few years the slightest disturbance will be labeled a “crisis” by politicians just to get people to rely more on the government.