March 27, 2009
Transparency you can believe in!

Posted at 7:22 am, in: Change, Government Accountability
Tags: Barack Obama

So much for “change you can believe in” and new level of transparency in government. Barack Obama is changing things, all right. Unfortunately, he is changing the way our government does business by shrouding it in more secrecy than we can conceive of.

On Monday, Josh Gerstein presented Obama’s dilemma:

Six weeks after President Barack Obama appointed a blue-ribbon panel to help him dig America out of its economic crisis, the board has yet to hold an official public meeting.

The White House initially said that the 16-member Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board, headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, would meet “every few weeks.” Last month, a spokesperson told POLITICO the group would meet monthly. More recently, the White House said the high-powered board, set up to address what Obama has called the worst economic emergency since the Great Depression, would gather only about four times a year, with the next session due in “late spring.”

But comments from board members and Obama himself indicate that some members of the panel are meeting, in smaller gatherings that have not been announced or opened to the public. And that raises the question of whether an administration that prides itself on openness and transparency is in fact finding it more convenient to conduct public business in private.

Now, the administration finds itself in a Catch-22: It does not want to say that the president’s economic panel, announced amid much fanfare, is not meeting during the worst economic crisis in generations. But if it is meeting, where’s the announcement, the agenda, the minutes? In short, where’s the sunshine?

And, now it looks like another panel, this time a tax panel, will be assembled to operate behind closed doors:

I think I have a better idea now why the White House was so sensitive about my story Monday questioning the legality and wisdom of secret meetings held by subcommittees of President Obama’s economic advisory panel.

It was because officials planned to announce within days that Obama intended to use just such a subcommittee to prepare his tax simplification and enforcement initiative. And it looks like they’re laying the groundwork to allow the new tax panel to do its work behind closed doors.

He went onto say:

Asked Thursday whether the tax subcommittee planned to do its business in public or private, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said, “The board will provide periodic updates and seek public input.”

That said, the legalities Orszag alluded to all seem to be aimed at allowing the tax panel to meet in private. The reason to have the task force appointed by the advisory board and not Obama is that, if Obama names them and gives them an assignment, they are a freestanding panel subject to the rules of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, including advance public notice of meetings and public meetings in most cases. Having them give their report to the full 16-member advisory board also insulates the group. By not reporting directly to Obama, the tax reform task force will be able to work behind closed doors.

Obama has not offered any of the transparency he campaigned on. There is less transparency in government now than there was six moths ago, and there’s much less transparency with this administration than the last. Now, that’s some change we can believe in!