Most transparent administration EVAH!
President Barack Obama once promised that negotiations over his health care overhaul would be carried out openly, in front of TV cameras and microphones. Tell that to the White House now.
Republican congressional investigators got the brush-off this past week after pressing for details of meetings between White House officials and interest groups, including drug companies and hospitals that provided critical backing for Obama’s health insurance expansion.
Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee “would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking” and could “implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests,” White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.
It’s one more roadblock for Republicans who tapped into widespread anxiety about the scope and costs of the new health care law to regain control of the House in last fall’s elections.
So far, they’ve been unable to repeal the landmark legislation they dismiss as “Obamacare.” GOP efforts to deny administration agencies the money to carry out the law are running into unintended consequences, not to mention the sheer difficulty of tracking those dollars. Now it looks like oversight isn’t going to be easy either.
“We are both concerned and disappointed by your response,” the committee chairman, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., wrote back to Bauer. “The American public deserves the information we have requested. The secret meetings conducted by (White House officials) are a perfect example of why transparency in government is so important.”
Upton urged the White House to carefully reconsider, but it’s uncertain he’ll ever get what he wants. Even if the standoff dramatically escalates to a congressional subpoena, history shows that presidents usually succeed in keeping records away from snooping eyes.
Couple this hardball tactic from the Administration with the GOP leadership’s decided lack of sack (at least when it comes to opposing Democrats, rather than, say, members of the TEA Party caucus) and, well, you know.
Let’s just hope they butter their fists for us this time.
I have good reason to believe my congressman is on the right side of the CR business.
My congresscritter has not responded.
What more could they need, to justify defunding, that they don’t already have?
I’m in California. Who should I talk to, since I have Fail and Lose for my representatives?
the trucer to rescue
Gov. Daniels endorses GOP Sen. Lugar, a big Tea Party target
our side has one 23 yo dude kicking butt on the leftards entrenched gov’t funded establishment so what do the “beltway boy” think:
link
thanks fred you can go back to your dc circle jerk with mort
So Chris Hansen’s sting artists who lure marks to a location where they are led to believe someone under the age of consent wishes to rendezvous… that would qualify as unethical journalism according to Barnes.
Right?
Pefect time to not raise the debt ceiling. Japan’s gonna tank the market for a little while, why not double-down? U.S. has credit limit with China, China has credit limit with England, England has credit limit with U.S. Will the circle be unbroken? Of course. Geez.
Someone’s britches a bit snug? This might be a long-time-buttered-popcorn-moment.
Or not. One of the comments…
Can’t we just point to a ‘might be a ‘Good Man” and wait a while to see how he does? Or is that man just another empty suit playing a relatively small part in the grand scheme of things?
Nice to see this pot stirred, if that’s what this means.
(I wonder if that commenter realized the irony of his ‘watch it burn – put out the flames’ line, perhaps not recalling the ‘spark’ that set off this current Middle East upheaval…)
I would suggest that all conservatives watch a little known BBC production of “A Very British Coup”. The movie suggests that all members of NATO would be much better off by renouncing the United States and seeking loans from the USSR. I’m not surprised that it is not shown again, but it is an interesting view into the leftist mind. I only have a few friends left in academia and they are leaving the first chance they get. The anti-west point of view is not only prevalent, but malignant. Somebody has to push the start over button – and quick.