24 Jun 2009

So Much for Change...

Doesn't look like a good track record is developing for reducing executive power, or for making government more transparent...
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3 comments:

Pace said...

My big beefs with Obama are War which has been expanded greatly rather than ended as promised (in Iraq anyway) and Civil Rights (of which I include Internet Access and Detainee Handling). He HAS stopped torture allegedly, but he is nonetheless not charging or releasing the detainees.

Honestly looking through the list of "broken promises" they seem pretty minor. Reason is actually making the argument that the cigarette tax makes Obama a liar on raising taxes because poor people smoke. The Reason folks are normally way above this.

The real argument to be made here is that increases in government spending and increases of the money supply by the Federal Reserve are a tax on the American People - therefore taxes have been massively increased - not some bullshit about cigarettes.

Lack of transparency is still an issue with the White House, I grant, but it is still much better than Bush, and if the media actually made a stink about it, I think the Obama Administration would bend.

The Obamaton media (forgive me if Rush Limbaugh uses that word) is simply too enthralled by Usurpation of Wealth and Liberty Magic Show right now to actually care about transparency.

Broken Promises really are not the issue. Its the Socialist "Change We Can Believe In".

01:48:00
Kochevnik said...

I agree that Reason is going after peanuts when they complain that Obama is allowing higher taxation on cigarettes. And quite honestly, I'm not sure I really mind if that tax goes up.

You are correct that the increase of government spending and "quantitative easing" will likely result in higher taxation on Americans, whether directly or indirectly through higher interest rates and a debased currency. I would actually have much preferred it if Obama had campaigned on raising taxes and cutting spending (in a serious way) in order to close the deficit. But apparently one of the many legacies of deposed tyrant Bush is that no politican with signifcant clout in DC has the ability to argue for rational fiscal policy, rather than just pursuing the unhinged one that we find ourselves in.

02:39:00
the cyberpanopticon said...

Maybe we can start by eliminating the vestigial office of vice president.
From the Atlantic Monthly:

But recent decades have seen an effort...to bestow some real powers on the veep. This trend reached its logical conclusion in the Dick Cheney era, which demonstrated that vesting vast, undefined power in a man who has little constitutional or statutory authority is even worse than paying someone a salary to do nothing.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/ideas-vice-president

06:04:00

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