Obama’s Open Government: Release Abu Ghraib Photos but No Visibility to Tarp Funds
I would laugh, but it’s not funny. President Obama is still waffling on releasing Abu Ghraib photos five years after the fact, and closing Gitmo, but at the same time the American public has pretty much zero visibility to where Tarp money is going, where auto bailout money went, or analysis of how the coming climate legislation is expected to affect them economically.
While Al Qaeda in Iraq is trying their own “Re-surge” with a spate of suicide bombing aimed at reopening sectarian conflict our President proposed releasing five year old photos that are certain to enrage now calm militias in Baghdad.
How is it open to propose then revoke on Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and Tarp? The American public is certainly more interested in how the government is spending Trillions in their tax dollars and managing the offshore loans against our future.
We have no clear policy directions on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Pakistan yet. How open is that?
We don’t know when taxes will be added, or what taxes will be added – how open is that? We don’t know whether the Bush tax-cuts will expire, how open is that? ( knowing the tax structure in advance is critical to planning most medium to large business’ in the US. Most of the bean-counters still don’t know what to plan for two to three years out and it’s crippling our ability to grow the economy back.)
This isn’t open government, it’s posture and charade.