To build support for the stimulus package, President Obama vowed unprecedented transparency, a big part of which, he said, would be allowing taxpayers to track money to the street level on Recovery.gov. Together with a spruced-up WhiteHouse.gov, the site would inject the stodgy federal bureaucracy with the same Webby accessibility and Facebook-generation flair that defined the Obama campaign.
But three months after the bill was signed, Recovery.gov offers little beyond news releases, general breakdowns of spending, and acronym-laden spreadsheets and timelines. And congressional Democrats, state officials and advocates of open government worry that the White House cannot come close to clearing the high bar it set.
via Tracking Stimulus Spending May Not Be as Easy as Promised – washingtonpost.com.
“…the site would inject the stodgy federal bureaucracy with same Webby accessibility and Facebook-generation flair that defined the Obama campaign.” Their words – “campaign.” That says it all. Since then, Obama has governed as a – my words – “bureaucratic reactionary.” I rather like that instead of the silly “progressive” or the meaningless “liberal.”
It’s much more polite and diplomatic-sounding than any of the terms I’m thinking of, Roger.
Look on the bright side, only 44 more months to go!
It doesn’t matter what Obama says. His supporters couldn’t care in the least what comes out of his mouth. They’re still too hung up on being part of “history.”
Check out his speech on the current budget, bloated beyond belief, budget busting, 4,000+ ear marks, and he says the era of unrestrained federal spending was over.
Yeah. Right.
The only thing that will pierce that bubble of invulnerability is the real, tangible, pain and suffering his acolytes will experience when the house of cards euphemistically known as ‘Socialism’ finally sets in.
PS
Expect the MSM to rave on during all that suffering on how great life in America is because of the messiah.
Is this a preview of how well they would track terrorists released from Gitmo on to US soil?
Just another thing liberals say government can do, and in fact, government cannot do it at all. When evidence of their failure becomes apparent, first he’ll blame Bush, then he’ll whine for more funding because Republicans have left him with too small a tax base.
One thing some governments can do well was today expostulated by Cheney. That’s the Constitutional requirement. As to the rest of the things Obama says government can do,one by one he will merely be the latest failure in trying to make statism work. Whenever he gets called on it, he’ll blame his failure on the mess that Bush left. If it were a sitcom, I wouldn’t watch it.
I worked in a manufacturing company in California, and can say with some degree of experience that bureaucrats are pretty much always reactionary. Seldom are they comitted to any result except feathering their own nest.
Is it too early to break out “kleptocratic”?
Follow the money. Stimulus bucks to federal, state and local government agencies (and therefore their employees and contractors). Stimulus bucks to ACORN, NACA, and other activist groups under the rubric of “non-partisan” activity. Bailouts for politically-powerful industries, accompanied by takeovers, government buyouts, and regulation which is management in all but name. Giving controlling interest in the auto companies to the powerful auto unions while expropriating the share belonging to senior debt-holders. Friendly companies like GE get plum no-bid contracts, unfriendly companies are called speculators and subjected to regulatory vendettas.
The unifying theme of President Obama’s entire agenda thus far has been to dump, borrow and now print money for his political network. Presumably Phase II will be punitive taxation/nationalization of assets from his enemies list to finance it all. Strip away the theatrics, and you have an old-style third-world kleptocracy.
“Bureaucratic Reactionary” Excellent term! Very evocative and accurate.
Back around 1977 I was driving through deepest darkest eastern Oklahoma and heard an interesting piece on a local radio station.
A small town there just had a new library built. And some Federal funds were used in building the facility. And some Federal Bureaucratic Reactionary had decided that having separate men’s and women’s bathrooms constituted discrimination. And the local library people had decided that the town was not ready yet for coed bathrooms, so they had never put the names on the doors and locked them up instead.
The Congressional Representative from the area was contacted about this absurdity and his response was understandable, if inadequate. “Look, we in Congress pass the laws but it ends up that some bureaucrat somewhere down the line has to implement them and we can’t control that.”
Indeed. They can’t control the other Bureaucratic Reactionaries on down the line. And neither can Obama. So it’s nobody’s fault that the people in Checotah or Okmulgee don’t have a place to pee.
Just another example of Obama saying whatever he thought would help him get elected. If the ignoramuses who voted for him actually believed he would deliver on his many promises, well they were too stupid to make their own decisions; they are in need of his wisdom to make decisions for them. There can be no doubt now. Any serious person understands that Obama is nothing more than a hype-artist. Nothing he says can be believed. Nothing he says is worth anything. Like every other dictator, he’s in it for his own personal power and gain.
Obama is a looter hell-bent on robbing us blind to pay-off the millions of useful-idiot parasites that comprise the modern Democratic party and that elected this grinning, empty-headed, pragmatism-riddled, envy-eaten little shyster.
Obama’s policies are pure economic suicide, but as cannibal-in-chief he’s convinced his followers these policies will work because they need only eat the richest — I mean, the fattest — 5% of the tribe to give everyone a full belly.
A few of his supporters — those still able to project into the distant future of day-after-tomorrow — are nervously wondering who’ll get eaten next once the tribe finishes digesting the 5% and finds itself growing hungry once again, but most are satisfied that nothing matters but the immediate moment and that “Yes we can“ Obama and his fellow power-lusting looters in Congress will find a fresh batch of victims to consume when the time comes.
Obama is looking more and more like Juan Peron. And like Peron, he will ruin America like Peron ruined Argentina.