February 22, 2009
NYC Letter: Obamanomics 102
Day 34 of CHOPE
- Obamanomics, preach accountability, transparency, and good stewardship -- for others.
OBAMA WARNS MAYORS
NOT TO WASTE STIMULUS MONEY
WASHINGTON February 20, 2009 (AP) - Invoking his own name-and-shame policy, President Barack Obama warned the nation's mayors on Friday that he will "call them out" if they waste the money from his massive economic stimulus plan.... His budget chief this week released a 25,000-word document* that details exactly how Cabinet and executive agencies, states and local organizations must report spending. It is a system meant to streamline reports so they can be displayed on the administration's new Web site, Recovery.gov.
We must jump in here: A 25,000-word compliance document "meant to streamline reports". [Pause.] Here is an example of streamlining at Recovery.gov. The site invites you to read the ARRA bill and provides a link;
The President recently signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law. Read the full bill here.
A dialogue box appears and you must click another link to be directed to the White House site. Here you are again invited to read the bill and a link is provided:
Read the final text of the legislation (PDF, 13.4MB), as the President signed it.
Again a dialogue box appears and you must click its link to download the PDF from the U.S. Government Printing Office site. Three sites, four clicks -- the smooth workings of the government.
Using his presidential pulpit, Obama demanded accountability, from his friends in local government as well as his own agencies. Mr. Obama:If a federal agency proposes a project that will waste that money, I will not hesitate to call them out on it, and put a stop to it. I want everyone here to be on notice that if a local government does the same, I will call them out on it, and use the full power of my office and our administration to stop it.... The president did not specify how, exactly, he would call out one of his own agencies or a local government about wasteful projects.
[Pause.]
As for yourself, do as you please.
Accountability:
IF SPENDING IS SWIFT, OVERSIGHT MAY SUFFER
February 9, 2009 (WaPo) - The Obama administration's economic stimulus plan could end up wasting billions of dollars by attempting to spend money faster than an overburdened government acquisition system can manage and oversee it, according to documents and interviews with contracting specialists.... Since 2000, procurement spending has soared about 155 percent to almost $532 billion while the growth in the acquisition workforce has fallen far short, rising about 10 percent.
Tranparency:
THE “RAT” HIDING DEEP INSIDE THE STIMULUS BILL
February 19, 2009 (DCE) - You’ve heard a lot about the astonishing spending in the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, signed into law this week by President Barack Obama. But you probably haven’t heard about a provision in the bill that threatens to politicize the way allegations of fraud and corruption are investigated -- or not investigated -- throughout the federal government.... In the name of accountability and transparency, Congress has given the RAT Board [Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board] the authority to ask “that an inspector general [an independent investigative watchdog] conduct or refrain from conducting an audit or investigation.” If the inspector general doesn’t want to follow the wishes of the RAT Board, he’ll have to write a report explaining his decision to the board, as well as to the head of his agency (from whom he is supposedly independent) and to Congress. In the end, a determined inspector general can probably get his way, but only after jumping through bureaucratic hoops that will inevitably make him hesitate to go forward.
... The language means that the board -- whose chairman will be appointed by the president -- can reach deep inside a federal agency and tell an inspector general to lay off some particularly sensitive subject. Or, conversely, it can tell the inspector general to go after a tempting political target.
Good stewardship:
TREASURY LOST $78 BILLION DUE TO OVERPAYMENT
OF TARP FUNDS, PANEL SAYS
February 6, 2009 (Associated Content) - According to the testimony of Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren, who is chairing the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP, Treasury doled out $254 billion for bank assets worth only $176 billion - an overpayment of $78 billion of taxpayer funds. She has also noted that Treasury has not cited any reason for the overpayment.According to the Congressional Budget Office's independent estimate released a month ago, Treasury overpaid $64 billion.
CHOPE.
Haste + Waste = Stimulus.
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* The document runs a bit longer than Molly Bloom's interior monologue (24,197 words).
