I have recently noticed an ongoing trend in this administration. Transparency was something that "Candidate" Obama preached in his campaign for the presidency on a daily basis. He even went as far as to say every bill that he signs into law will be on the Internet for the public to review for at least five days before he signs it. Once has that ALMOST happened. One bill appeared on the Internet for 33 hours and then was sign. This was during the weekend I might add. As we pass this, media deemed, "historical 100 days in office" has our government CHANGED as much as the president said it would?
William Derrick
POS2001
12pm M-F
5 comments:
Obviously 100 days is a very short time period, so expecting the full breadth of promised change would be unrealistic. Do you have a source quoting Obama as saying "every bill" that he signs into law will be on the Internet for five days? And what was the context of that claim? And did he say that it would happen immediately? It is always legitimate to question authority, but do it based on things that were actually promised and not delivered within a reasonable time. Also do it based on comparison to others in the same position. Even if something isn't acheived 100%, it can still be better than what others did or would've done.
Type transparency and obama speech and the speech comes up. There are plenty of times the man stated this. On top of that, how is passing an 1100 page bill about spending 787 billion dollars without a single member of congress having read it transparent? The Dodd Amendment was a perfect example of that. Congress is yelling at the NEW AIG CEO (key word NEW) and they were the ones who passed the law to grant the bonuses in the first place!
William Derrick
POS2001 12:00
The "type transparency and Obama speech" line violates the "show your evidence" aspect of critial thinking. Since you make the claim, it is up to you to provide the evidence to support it. It is obvious that he promised transparency, but did he promise it the exact same way that you interpret the word? Probably not.
Congress determines when bills are proposed and passed, not the president. If members don't have enough time to read it (or choose not to), that is their fault, not anyone else's.
The idea that Congress passed a law granting the bonuses is false information. The bonuses were already in existence (as part of existing contracts) prior to the bill passing.
The Dodd Amendment Promising to pay out already in place bonus' is in this link.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2009/03/18/cbs-covers-aig-bonuses-no-mention-chris-dodd-amendment-protecting-them
This site talks of Obama's "five-day pledge".
The stimulus bill had the Dodd Ameendment WHICH CONTAIN A CLAUSE that legally binded contacts for bonuses made prior to the bailout. I need to be much more specific. I am treating this more as an open forum where I just assume people are stating facts. I will continue to back my information up.
William Derrick
POS2001 12
The text of the amendment that Dodd submitted didn't contain any such language. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/amendment.xpd?session=111&amdt=s354
The language was inserted by a bipartisan conference committee and there is no record of who specifically put it in.
Beyond that, the language in the final bill did not require anything to be paid, a bonus that exists in a contract is already required to be paid by basic contractual law. The AIG bonuses were revealed as being in the contract more than a year before the Stimulus Bill and were approved of in the original AIG bailout, which was done under President Bush and the original TARP plan. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/16/AR2009031602961.html
You didn't include the link to the Obama pledge.
You should always back up your claims, even in an open forum. Something isn't a fact unless it can be backed up by legitimate sources.
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