Category: government transparency

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government transparency media and media people

Christie Crushes Crazy Media Crotchet

Whether or not Governor Christie fully succeeds in slashing spending and taxes as they need to be slashed to revive the New Jersey economy, he’s pursuing his mission the right way: head-​on, without a lot of obfuscatory politician-speak.

The latest evidence of forthrightness comes in response to a reporter’s question, the video of which has gone viral. The reporter is puzzled and perturbed by the governor’s terrible tone in dealing with the legislature. He wants to know whether Christie thinks that “this sort of confrontational tone can increase your odds in getting [a trimmer budget] through the legislature?”

Christie says he was sent to the governor’s mansion to combat bigger government, higher taxes, more spending, not to soft-​peddle his views. He’s going to push for lower taxes, lower spending. “Now, I could say it really nicely. I could say it in the way that you all might be more comfortable with. Maybe we could go back to the last administration where I could say it in a way you wouldn’t even understand it.… When you ask me questions, I’m going to answer them directly, straightly, bluntly, and nobody in New Jersey is going to have to wonder where I am on an issue.…”

Meanwhile, aides standing in the background look like they’re about to pump their fists in the air, as perhaps taxpayers are doing right now all around New Jersey. 

All I can say is: Keep up the good work, Governor.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency national politics & policies

Democrats Give the Internet to the FTC?

Congress has all the backbone of a jellyfish. Tasked with sole power to declare war, it delegates such decision-​making to the Executive Branch every chance it gets. The U.S. hasn’t declared war since World War II, but is now engaged in two land wars in Asia. 

Further, for a long time, Congress has handed over law-​writing tasks to various regulatory divisions of the Executive Branch. This may have gotten worse with the recent Democratic hegemony. Example? Congress is maneuvering to give the Internet over to the Federal Trade Commission.

Pelosi’s little platoons have hidden this momentous change in the recent banking regulation bill. But as Ed Morrissey of Hotair​.com notes, the Internet had nothing to do with the recent financial collapse, another iteration of which the new bill is ostensibly designed to prevent

So why sneak this provision into an unrelated bill?

Maybe to come down on one side of the Net Neutrality debate without ever really confronting the issues. 

People engaged in this debate about regulating Internet and bandwidth pricing may disagree about a lot of things, but surely they all agree that Congress should legislate for the Internet openly and honestly, not make its biggest decisions in obscure provisions of a measure that will be voted on only to solve utterly unrelated problems.

You may be thinking, FCC, FTC — does it matter? Well, I bet it really matters to some powerful Democrat. Hence the sneaky maneuvers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency national politics & policies too much government

How to Find Out What’s In the Health Care Bill

When I heard what Nancy Pelosi said about the health care bill the other day, I did a double-​take. And had to double-​check the press release issued by Pelosi’s own office.

Yikes! She really said it! Then published it on her website to the accompaniment of bugles and trumpets! 

Okay, maybe I invented the bugles and trumpets. But not the words:

“Prevention, prevention, prevention — it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting. But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Ah yes, the “fog of the controversy”! The way critics of this 2000-​page legislation have exposed the regimentation, price controls, new taxes, and choked-​off choices we’ll all suffer if the bill passes. How dare we!

Terrible that there’s actually debate about whether we should permanently lose more of our freedoms. Can’t we all agree to be trampled and then find out what it all means? After it’s too late to stop it?

No. Let’s dispel the fog right now. Let the government mail a copy of the bill to every voter. 

And let Congress agree that every voter must pass a 500-​question multiple choice quiz on its contents before Congress moves forward. 

Let’s dispel the fog before we’re saddled with this thing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

Grading the President

Barack Obama promised a new era of government transparency. He even pledged a fully transparent congressional debate on health care reform, telling us repeatedly that the negotiations would be televised on C‑Span.

Now in power, he’s forgotten that tune. But of course, that’s not up to him. It’s up to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Last week, she laughed at such transparency.

But Clint Hendler of the Columbia Journalism Review has graded the president for what he — not Pelosi or Reid — can deliver on transparency. Regarding state secrets, Hendler gives Obama a “D.” With Freedom of Information Act requests the administration has done better: Mark it a “B.”

I’ve talked before about problems with the recovery​.gov website. But what about data​.gov? By the end of the month there should be some meat on that site’s database bones, but a lot more work will remain. Call it a “D‑plus.”

Hendler gives an “F” to the White House’s routine — and utterly opaque — practice of concocting off-​the-​record background briefings. An “A‑minus,” though, goes for White House visitor records … despite a refusal to issue lists of visitors in the administration’s first seven months. Further, the White House reserves its right to hold back this info at any time.

The president’s grades sure aren’t that of an overachiever. Maybe he needs a tutor.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency responsibility

What Would Confucius Say?

House Resolution 784, proposed to honor the twenty-​five-​hundred-​sixtieth anniversary of the birth of Confucius, received a No vote from Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake.

Why?

Honorable Flake say ‘He who spends time passing trivial legislation may find himself out of time to read healthcare bill.’

He has a point, and it’s worth than a fortune-​cookie presentation.

I am pretty sure Master K’ung-tzu, whom we call Confucius, would side with Flake. It is more important actually to do good deeds than honor the ancient wisdom of a foreign culture, or its chief exemplar.

It’s not bad to honor such an ancient one as Master Kung. But if everything else you do rubs against the Confucian grain, what does that say?

Take just one issue. Congress continues to obsess about executive salaries, and in effect has given the current administration the green light to fix salaries.

But as economist Arnold Kling has noticed, this is all a distraction. ‘The substantive issue is the extent to which [recent market] losses were caused by political actions and the extent to which they are concentrated at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.… Given the large role of Freddie and Fannie, it makes sense for politicians to create as large a diversion as possible. Hence, the brouhaha over bonuses at bailed-​out banks.’

Very un-​Confucian, such shifting of blame.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

Steal This Free Document

Is it possible to steal a free good? Ask a lawyer. She’ll look it up, probably in federal court records.

Now, our federal courts use a not-​very-​user-​friendly database system, known as PACER, for distributing public records. These records are the work product of democracy. Federal law prohibits copyrighting the information, making it public property. But the PACER system nevertheless requires lawyers and others who want to access court decisions to plunk out eight cents per page to get them.

Worse than this, the database isn’t keyword searchable.

Enter the geeks.

In a free market, a potential demand meets supply by the entrepreneurial minded. In this case, it’s just the freedom-​minded, the transparency-​minded. Some Harvard and Princeton affiliated computer whizzes developed a new tool or two to retrieve these documents little pieces at a time, planning to place them in a truly searchable system.

And then the courts opened the records to law libraries without charge, and one hacker wrote a PERL script and started downloading the whole database, in huge, streaming chunks.

Half a month later someone noticed. Egads, someone was stealing free information!

The FBI investigated, started following the infiltrator.

So, what do you do when someone steals public information? Exactly what the FBI determined, in the end.

Yes, sometimes “nothing” is the proper response.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.