Sunlight Becomes Shooting Star

Another Obama “promise” bites the dust:

A few weeks ago, the Obama Administration officially abandoned the President’s “Sunlight before Signing” campaign pledge that the White House would post all legislation passed by Congress for at least five days before the President would sign it.

Naturally, the Administration maintained that they’d keep their promise even though they’d abrogated the formal commitment.

But since they were only talking to peasants, they had their fingers crossed:

When the New York Times published the story, five bills had been presented to the president and were awaiting his signature. Four more were presented to him after the story’s publication. All nine are now law.

And for the life of me, I can’t find where any of them have been posted on Whitehouse.gov. Surely it was clear to the White House that the five bills it had and the four soon to come would reach the president’s desk.

I disagree with arguments for releasing President Obama from his pledge to sign bills only after he has posted them for a full five days after receiving them. It would have the same effects as the 72-hour hold the Sunlight Foundation is seeking from Congress — also a welcome legislative process reform.

OBAMA APOLOGIST:  “But it’s just to haaard…”

Well, no:

And it’s becoming more clear that the five-day promise could be implemented. At this point, only one of 39 bills that the president has signed has been posted for five days in advance. (The DTV Delay Act was actually not held five days after formal presentment, but the White House posted it after the final version had passed Congress.) Twenty-four other bills have been held at the White House five days or more before the President has signed them. They just haven’t been posted.

To repeat, over 60% of the legislation coming out of Congress waits five days for the president’s signature as a matter of course. The only thing preventing implementation of the president’s promise as to these bills is the White House’s inexplicable reluctance to do what it says it will do.

So let’s get this straight; after promising a “transparent” governent, he runs an opaque administration.  Six months after ramrodding through a “stimulus” putatively aimed at saving and creating private-sector jobs, he’s only slowed the hemorraging at the government level.  And after promising to buff America’s allegedly tarnished image around the world, he’s cuddled up to dictators and slipped them all kinds of tongue.

Change!

5 thoughts on “Sunlight Becomes Shooting Star

  1. Silly mortals. Great Leader would have been signing them even if you did try to read all 500 pages.
    Now shut up and get back to work, We have to “fix” health care.

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