President Obama promised to run a “transparent” government, issuing an open government directive that was intended to contrast his stewardship with the “secrecy” of the Bush presidency. Critics have noted that the promise has often been honored more in the breach than in the observance.
President Obama says a shutdown of the government would have dire consequences for the American people — but his White House is telling agencies not to talk about what those consequences are.
In e-mails from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) last month, agencies were told their statements to Congress “should not state or imply what functions would or would not be continued in the event of a funding gap.”
One such e-mail, sent to the Selective Service System on Feb. 24, is one of the few documents released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests that USA TODAY sent to 92 federal agencies last month.
We’re half way through the government’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget, and still operating on continuing resolutions from FY10 because the last Congress had better things to do than fund the federal government. Which is killing the uniformed services’ modernization and maintenance plans, by the way. And now it’s set to impact you, directly.
So, if you think you’ll be needing anything from the federal government in the near future, you’d better get cracking. There’s a better than even chance that the lights are going to go out in two weeks time, and the bureaucracy has been forbidden from talking about what impact that will have on you, the taxpayer.
This probably has something to do with your “need to know.”
And yes: You’ll still need to file that 1040 on time. Regardless of whether there will be anyone to carry the mail, or anyone to open it.
I don’t know, Lex. This can also be taken as a directive to the servants of the people to stay out of the political fight. I lived in Washington DC through the last shutdown, which was truly the center of the storm. Out there in, say, North Dakota, I don’t think most folks noticed anything different.
And when I lived in DC in the 1980s, the Library of Congress had its budget cut. What services did they cut? Why, the hours in which the Library was open to scholars, of course, in order to generate the maximum pain and outcry. If this directive prevents that BS, it seems like good sense to me.
I dunno Zane, I lived in DC for many years, and had professional interactions with many federal employees. I would definitely categorize a goodly percentage of them as being far from apolitical.
I too was there for the last shut-down. And I suspect that they’re staying mum right now to increase the shock value should one occur. That way, if it happens and folks start wondering where their “services” went, the skeleton crew of professional bureaucrats can repeat whatever programmed response they’re given to inform them that their “services” are hostage to the shut down; as you said, to generate the maximum pain and outcry.
But then again, perhaps I suspect bad intent on the part of others too much, like, on the part of Mr. Schumer, who was explaining just how to pin any shut down on the intransigence of “TEABAGGERZ!” to accept the Democrat’s stonewalling of the budget reduction process.
Because everyone knows this country’s not broke!, as long as the treasury’s printing press has ink
I think we’re agreeing on the bureaucrats actually being political. But yes, I’m putting the best light on the directive to keep mum. Having seen the chaos first hand last time, I also know that most agencies can’t honestly tell you right now who is a “mission essential” employee or not, and what core functions they will have to maintain. The military, for example, reports for work as if nothing is happening, but in the agencies the GS-15 (or is it Band 4 these days) who is also a reserve O-5 or 0-6 loses his reserve billet if he is “mission essential” to his agency. It’s a great comedy to watch from up close as they twist and spin to protect both their sinecures.
Before foisting their social agenda on the American people, the last Congress should have tended to their responsibilities first, by passing a budget; it’s that simple…
Especially when one factors in the academy award worthy garment rending and gnashing of teeth that went on during the 2006 Congresssional mid-term campaigns over, *gasp*, the Irresponsibility! of the majority (GOP) for budgeting via continuing resolutions!11!1!
But really, wasn’t repealing DADT and imposing the Dodd/Frank non-reform bull on the nation more important, you know, doing their jobs?
Simple solution: reelect NOBODY, not even your Mother.
How DARE you try to hold The One to what he said! He is transcendent and above such petty things.
The subject is different, but the mindset is the same: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAyCdfOXvec&feature=player_embedded
Or he could be using the silence to stay above the fray that Congress is dealing with. He wants to remain Presidential, not playing Chicken Little like others will do. (Eww, that sounds like I’m defending him). America has such short-term memory that another CR will put us over our limit for caring. With Japan and Libya (which we’re already tiring over), and the measly window dressing that are the current budget cuts, Congress and their tea-party freshmen can claim they did what they could and we’ll be happy enough to get the saga over with.
It seems that some of you have lost the message here. The promise during the campaign, and at least during the first year of this reign, was a totally open federal government, at least at the executive level. What we have instead is possibly the most secretive executive we have ever had.
http://www.eutimes.net/2010/03/obama-becomes-most-secretive-president-in-history-as-denied-requests-for-information-hits-record/
Even HuffPo blasts him on it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Debbie_McPherson/obama-pledge-to-improve-t_n_835483_80694071.html
But, all this should come as no surprise, considering how much information about himself he has kept from public view, like:
1 Columbia University transcripts
2 Columbia thesis paper
3 Campaign donor analysis requested by 7 major watchdog groups
4 Harvard University transcripts
5 Illinois State Senate records
6 Illinois State Senate schedule
7 Law practice client list and billing records/summary
8 Locations and names of all half-siblings and step-mother
9 Medical records (only the one page summary released so far)
10 Occidental College Transcripts
11 Parent’s marriage Certificate
12 Record of baptism
13 Selective Service registration records
14 Schedules for trips outside of the United States before 2007
15 Passport records for all passports
16 Scholarly articles
17 SAT and LSAT test scores
18 Access to his grandmother in Kenya
19 List of all campaign workers that are lobbyists
20 Punahou grade school records
21 Noelani Kindergarten records are oddly missing from the the State of Hawaii Department of Education.
22 Page 11 of Stanley Ann Dunham’s divorce decree.
23 Why did Barack Obama resign from the Illinois bar and where are all of the relevant documents?
24 Why did Michelle Obama resign from the Illinois bar after only about four years of practice and where are all of the relevant documents?
Joe
Do a google search for Obama-kagan and see who the “attorney for respondent” was in every case that was denied. What you will find (I cleaned it up a bit so as not to reveal the petitioner in this instance):
Attorneys for Petitioner:
Gary William 33069-138
Unit- Shelby B
PO Box 34550
, TN 38
Party name: Gary William
Attorneys for Respondents:
Elena Kagan Solicitor General (202) 514-2217
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530-0001
SupremeCtBriefs@USDOJ.gov
Party name: Barack H. Obama, President of the United States, et al.
Transparency? His keepers have done a masterful job.
Joe, you omitted the fact that,iirc, he also has (or had variously at different times) three (3) different social security numbers and that one of them was issued with a NJ prefix at a time before the best records extant indicate that he had ever set foot in NJ.
He promised transparency….he just didn’t tell you back then that he meant transparency only to the ‘sense of perception’ of the Gray Lensman, not a normal human.
Ah, yes, that reminds me of a story, told to me by former roomie, MAJ Unger(resigned). It seems that when he was advising out in the field in Viet-Nam, back in 1963, word got back to the District of Criminals that he had failed to dot an i, or cross a t, or something, on one of his IRS forms. Therefore, a special mission was mounted to send an helicopter out into the field to find him and deliver to him the appropriate IRS letter and enclosures.
Note that he’d been out in the field for a month or so, with only sketchy comm and liaison, couldn’t get his indigenous wounded troops evacuated by USMC helicopters, didn’t get any respect from the Special Forces forted up with their refrigerators, was one of two white men within fifty miles, but the Treasury Department put on a special mission just to f*ck with him.
P.s. Yeah, it was more prolly a Finance Corps (or whatever they call it these days) guy hitching a ride on a regular liaison and supply flight, but it still shows a bad attitude on the part of The Powers That Be.
It’ll all come out in 50 years. Except for what’s already been shredded.