Obama Citizenship

Whitehouse.gov Lacking Transcripts; House GOP on Stimulus, ReadTheStimulus.org

By Phil

While the White House has been hosting press briefings, Mary Katherine Ham at the Weekly Standard points out that transcripts of these briefings aren’t currently available:

Barack Obama?s administration may be promising the ?greatest ethical standard ever administered to an executive branch,? and increased transparency over his predecessor, but it seems to be forgoing at least one transparency practice that was routine in the Bush White House? transcripts of the daily press briefing.

It?s been four days since Press Secretary Robert Gibbs? first (and widely panned) appearance before the White House press corps, but no transcript, summary, or video of the event has shown up onWhiteHouse.gov. The delay could be forgiven in a less tech-savvy bunch, but given the Obama team?s considerable online skill, the omission of the the transcript is clearly intentional.

The decision to withhold transcripts is not a departure from the Obama Team?s online posture during the campaign, and signals that?s exactly the posture they intend to take for the next four years. Team Obama got a lot of credit for being an active online presence, which indeed it was, but that presence was built for message control, not openness. (My.BarackObama, the campaign?s social networking platform, is a different story, but it was cordoned off from the official campaign material, which was pretty tightly controlled.)

Why is this an issue? RedState.com reacts accordingly…

There are two concerns here: one practical, and one theoretical. The practical problem here is that full and prompt official documentation of press conferences and statements is a very useful tool for the people who use them to write news and/or analysis pieces. Having a transcript - or, better, a video - of precisely what was said (and not said) can make the difference between a flap and a scandal? and if you don?t think that this is that big a deal, imagine how much fun The Usual Suspects could have had if they were able to claim that the Bush administration came out in favor of eating puppies and nobody was able to readily check. Well, right now nobody can check. Shoot, right now it?d take people a while to get the information together to confirm or deny MK?s observation that Gibbs did badly in his first press conference. Under Bush, we?d just link and let people make up their own minds.

On a better note, Politico.com is reporting that the House GOP leadership is whipping up votes against the stimulus package. While it is obvious that the Democrats can pass whatever they please on Capitol Hill, it is vitally important that the Republicans take a stand now for election time later, else the proverbial pendulum of politics will not sway back their way:

President Barack Obama is coming to the Capitol this afternoon to curry favor with congressional Republicans. But it appears GOP leaders have already made up their minds to oppose his $825 billion stimulus plan.

House Republican Leader John A. Boehner and his No. 2, Whip Eric Cantor, told their rank-and-file members Tuesday morning during a closed-door meeting to oppose the bill when it comes to the floor Wednesday, according to an aide familiar with the discussion. Boehner told members that he?s voting against the stimulus, and Cantor told the assembled Republicans that there wasn?t any reason for them to support the measure, according to another person in the room. Cantor and his whip team are going to urge GOP members to oppose it.

In a nod to the president, Boehner did point out that this is the third time that Obama has met with Republican leaders, compared with the zero meetings they?ve held with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ? a now-familiar refrain from Republicans in the House. But Obama?s diplomacy clearly isn?t buying any votes yet.

Here is a listing from the GOP Ways and Means Committe web site showing all amendments that had been offered up on this bill (only a GAO study amendment got passed, as highlighted by RedState.com); here is the Republican alternative plan; and for those who really want to see the nitty-gritty, go to ReadTheStimulus.org.

AUTHOR	DESCRIPTION	ACCEPTED/REJECTED
Camp	Strike ?Making Work Pay,? reduce the 10% and 15% individual income tax brackets to 5% and 10%, respectively, for 2009 and 2010.	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Herger	Add an above-the-line deduction for heath insurance premiums	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Johnson	Exempt unemployment benefits from income taxation in 2008 and 2009.	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Brady	AMT Patch for 2009	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Ryan	Make permanent the dividends and capital gains tax rats and index the latter for inflation.	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Linder	Add a GED / training requirement for those getting extended unemployment benefits	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Brown-Waite	GAO study of impact of COBRA provisions on employer costs	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Davis	$7B transfer from federal to state unemployment accounts to prevent state payroll tax increases	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Reichert	Prohibit HIT money from being spent until interoperability standards are in place	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Boustany	Prohibiting Medicare from using comparative effectiveness research to restrict access	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Heller	Extending homebuyer tax credit through 2009, allow it to be claimed by anyone purchasing a primary residence (as opposed to just first-time homebuyers), and require buyers to have at least a 5% down payment to get the credit	REJECTED One Democrat supporting
Roskam	GAO study to assess success of program in creating private sector jobs	ACCEPTED
Herger	Conditions Health IT funding on providers giving patients additional price transparency	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Johnson	Strikes the HIT funding provisions and replaces it with tax incentives	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Brown-Waite	Remove the provision requiring states to make permanent changes to their benefit eligibility rules to be eligible for a temporary transfer of federal unemployment funds	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Davis	Increase to $5,000 the cap on tax credits for individuals purchasing energy efficient property (windows, furnaces, etc)	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Boustany	Strike the HIT privacy language and replace with a report	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
		REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Johnson	Allow seniors to opt out of Part A of Medicare	REJECTED No Democrats supporting

-Phil

Full post as published by The Right Side of Life on January 27, 2009 (boomark / email).