Obama Announces Plan to Restore Trust in Government

[jefferson_dem]

Obama Announces Plan to Restore Trust in Government
Proposals Will Make Government More Transparent

MANCHESTER, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--During a roundtable discussion with New Hampshire voters in Manchester today, U.S. Senator Barack Obama announced a series of initiatives to restore the American people’s trust in their government by making government more transparent.

“It’s no secret that most Americans think the country is on the wrong track,” Obama told the group. “But the reason isn’t just failed policies. It’s a system in Washington that has failed the American people. A system that has not kept the most fundamental trust of American democracy: that our government is of the people, and that it must govern for all the people – not just the interests of the wealthy and well-connected.”

Saying that Washington has failed to address the issues that matter most to Americans, Obama outlined his plans to make government more transparent, including:

Lifting the curtain on connections between lobbyists and Members of Congress by creating a centralized database of lobbying reports, congressional ethics records, and campaign finance filings available on the internet in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format,

Expanding lobbying disclosure rules to include lobbyists seeking government contracts and presidential pardons,

Enforcing congressional lobbying laws and ethics rules through an independent entity,

Creating an “contracts and influence” database which will disclose how much federal contractors spend on lobbying, and ensuring citizens have easy access to contract details and contractor performance.

“We’re not going to be able to change America unless we challenge this system that isn’t working for us and hasn’t for a long time,” Obama said. “Now I know some will say that we can’t make this change. That the culture of corrosive influence in politics is too sprawling to spotlight. Or that the lobbyists writing our laws represent real Americans.

“That’s not how I see it. Because when it comes to what’s wrong with this country, the American people are not the problem. The American people are the answer. The American people want to trust in our government again – we just need a government that will trust in us. And making government accountable to the people isn’t just a cause of this campaign – it’s been a cause of my life for two decades.”

Senator Obama is a long-time leader in the effort to reform government. As a State Senator in Illinois, Obama passed the first campaign finance reform in 25 years. In the U.S. Senate, Obama took on both parties to help pass major ethics and lobbying reform legislation. And earlier this year in a speech in Manchester, Obama pledged to that on his first day in the White House he would enact the most sweeping ethics reform in history.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070904005864&newsLang=en

FULL DOCUMENT HERE --> http://my.barackobama.com/page/-/Press/Restoring%20Trust%20in%20Government%20Fact%20Sheet%20090407%20%282%29.pdf.pdf

[no_hypocrisy]

1. So he's bringing back to guillotine to the public square?

[jkshaw]

2. What?

?

[no_hypocrisy]

4. French Revolution, the Jacobians, Tale of Two Cities, etc.

The end of a monarchy in very real terms.

[Lobster Martini]

3. If you could take one severed head home, which one would it be?

Hatch? Naa, too ugly. Domenici? How about Norm Coleman? Help out Al Franken.

[Bullet1987]

5. What about the Freedom of Information Act?

[3waygeek]

7. Easy -- I'd take Dubya's head.

It's already empty, so it doesn't need to be cleaned out.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. What does he mean, "restore"?

No people have ever trusted their government and none ever will.

This kind of meaningless rhetoric does not impress me.

[BeyondGeography]

8. Hard to imagine what would impress Mr. Donald Ian Rankin based on that post

Hard to imagine why anyone would care, either.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. Telling the truth, rather than bullshitting.

We both know that, even if Obama does get elected, and does everything he says he will - which you can bet he wouldn't - then most of the electorate would still not trust him much.

If they did, it would be creating trust, not restoring it.

"I will restore the trust of the electorate in government" is an insult to the intelligence of the audience.

[ripple]

16. Most?

We're talking about trust here, not policy agreement. Most presidents are elected based on trust. People innately want to trust their politicians and their government.

Look at history, it's been done. Not all, but most.

[Bodhi BloodWave]

9. Guess i don't exist then o.O

I trust my Government for the most part, they just need to be watched and given a smack behind the head at times


Also if Obama implements all the things he has spoken off then its more them meaningless rhetoric(or do you see those plans/ideas as useless?)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. You may exist, for all I know to the contrary, but I doubt you're representative.

I would be surprised if there are many more others like you.

On the other hand, I must admit I know very little about Norwegian (if I read your profile right) politics - it's possible that I'm overgeneralising from British & American politics, to be fair.

[jefferson_dem]

12. The evidence proves you wrong...

There's no question that the degree of the American public's trust in government has varied greatly over the years. You may consider Obama's call to re-instill public trust "meaningless rhetoric" but let's at least be in step with reality...

http://www.electionstudies.org/nesguide/toptable/tab5a_1.htm

[Nimrod2005]

13. GOBAMA rules.........nt

[Colobo]

14. Exactly.

[Major Hogwash]

15. We need more of this, this is what we desperately need right now.

If we can restore trust, then we can rebuild New Orleans, we can rebuild Iraq, we can rebuild our infrastructure.

We need more people getting onboard and help us rebuild our country, rebuild our integrity around the world, and rebuild confidence people have in our federal government.