Sailing On A Sea of Red Ink

In just under two weeks, Barack Obama will become the President of the United States but it seems as though he's been on the job for several weeks already.

Obama has warned Americans their government will likely be running trillion dollar deficits for years to come. But he also vowed to keep Congressional pork barelling out of his recovery package.

To let Americans know that their tax dollars are being invested wisely, not squandered, Obama has come up with a brilliant solution. Following on the spectacular success of his online campaign fundraising effort, Obama says he'll put all the details of the recovery plan online.

Details of the plan, which has yet to be drafted as a bill, will be available online, Obama said, "so the American people will know where their precious tax dollars are going and whether we are hitting our marks." He promised to make difficult choices and to ``eliminate outmoded programs and make the ones we do need work better." He did not specify which programs might be trimmed or eliminated.
Obama said he will create an "economic recovery oversight board" and bring "a long overdue sense of responsibility and accountability to Washington."

It appears that Obama has figured out that the one way to avoid Congressional earmarks plaguing the recovery plan is to lay out all the details before the public directly on line. He knows there'll be enough computer geeks undertaking line by line analysis of expenditures that legislators will shy away from exposure to public, online scrutiny.

It's depressing, sort of, knowing that their leader is embracing transparency and total openness while our control freak operates behind closed doors with a gagged and bound public service.