Mar 11 2009
Obama inspires hope on two issues
Coming from me, this might seem rather startling. I have not been writing long, but it should be rather clear that I fall into the category of the 30% of Americans that currently “strongly disapproves of our president’s policies. But on today’s postings at www.whitehouse.gov, I did find two things to praise the president for, and hope for a better future from.
The first thing that I can clearly be in favor of is his most recent executive order: ESTABLISHING A WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL ON WOMEN AND GIRLS. And while I admit that my first reaction was wondering if this is really something of paramount focus (what with all of the economic problems and the continued questions about the war on terrorism), upon pausing for a moment, I decided this was just the kind of hope that a president should bring.
In the 1950s the issue of racism in America was already a growing concern, but Eisenhower, for all the wonderful things about the man, chose to injudiciously put the issue aside for someone else to deal with. It was not that he was not aware of the growing impropriety of having men going and dieing equally for their country, yet being treated clearly as unequals at home, but that he simply felt that there were larger concerns to be addressed.
Likewise, the womans movement, though it appeared in the 1960s never achieved the same status, nor results as the civil rights movement was able to achieve for minorities. The result being that while rights for minorities have significantly improved over the last fifty years, the rights of women in America have significantly lagged or even stagnated.
This plan of Obama’s can be a strong step in the right direction towards creating true equality and opportunity for women in America.
Likewise, while I am not excited about the omnibus spending or the earmark spending, I am here choosing to hope that the statements made by Obama about developing a process for change in earmark spending (which can be read below in full) will be true steps towards reform. And while I wish these changes were taking place right now, and I recognize the very gray and ambiguous nature of some of the things Obama has said on the topic, I here choose to take a stance of hope. Here is what Obama released as part of his statement:
“In my discussions with Congress, we have talked about the need for further reforms to ensure that the budget process inspires trust and confidence instead of cynicism. So I believe as we move forward, we can come together around principles that prevent the abuse of earmarks.
These principles begin with a simple concept: Earmarks must have a legitimate and worthy public purpose. Earmarks that members do seek must be aired on those members’ websites in advance, so the public and the press can examine them and judge their merits for themselves. Each earmark must be open to scrutiny at public hearings, where members will have to justify their expense to the taxpayer.
Next, any earmark for a for-profit private company should be subject to the same competitive bidding requirements as other federal contracts. The awarding of earmarks to private companies is the single most corrupting element of this practice, as witnessed by some of the indictments and convictions that we’ve already seen. Private companies differ from the public entities that Americans rely on every day –- schools, and police stations, and fire departments.
When somebody is allocating money to those public entities, there’s some confidence that there’s going to be a public purpose. When they are given to private entities, you’ve got potential problems. You know, when you give it to public companies — public entities like fire departments, and if they are seeking taxpayer dollars, then I think all of us can feel some comfort that the state or municipality that’s benefitting is doing so because it’s going to trickle down and help the people in that community. When they’re private entities, then I believe they have to be evaluated with a higher level of scrutiny.
Furthermore, it should go without saying that an earmark must never be traded for political favors.
And finally, if my administration evaluates an earmark and determines that it has no legitimate public purpose, then we will seek to eliminate it, and we’ll work with Congress to do so.”
Again I can only take a position of hope that this is not empty rhetoric, but action towards positive reform. If it is not, you can be certain to hear about it from me.
