I know what the Obama-pushers are busy shrieking at their monitors right now. “OH! But! But! But that’s just ONE non-scientific analysis of the government done by a BIASED news organization interested in selling ads! HA!”
Calm down, Lucy. There’s more proof – a lot more – and it comes directly from the federal government.
The Homeland Security Department under Janet Napolitano has employed over 230,000 exemptions to deny FOIA requests in 2011 alone.
The Department of Justice does their own tally of FOIA requests, and their results are just as chilling. Counting the entirety of the Obama administration’s reign, a little over one third of all FOIA requests were fully granted (and we can likely assume many of those still fell outside of the required 20 day period). Think about that number, people. Two-thirds of all FOIA requests to the 100 agencies required to respond to them were not fully complied with. There is no possible excuse for that under any stretch of the imagination.
The use of exemptions from FOIA requests have skyrocketed during this same time period. The sweetest plum (or bitterest fruit, depending on your party alignment) is that the first year of the Obama administration showed a 50% increase in these exemptions over the last year of the Bush administration.
So while the President continues to crow about how the do-nothing Congress and the evil corporations are the reason our economy sucks, we would all do well to remember these chilling facts. How can we even know how badly the federal government is really screwing things up when we can’t even get travel expense reports out of them?
P.S.
If you want to have more of this blood-curdling type of fun, visit foia.gov and revel in the sorry state of our federal government’s transparency policies.
American News Post
2 Comments
I have to wonder what Bloomberg’s original intent was in requesting this information, and right before the election.
Was this a fishing expedition to try to find a new “issue” to inject into the presidential election? If they had received the information they sought would it have turned into a “government wastes too much money” story in which every expense account item of every functionary is scrutinized to the nth degree? Oh my, look at what they spent on Continental Breakfasts!
Since Bloomberg didn’t get the travel expense information they sought to pick apart they turned the story into a “lack of transparency story” instead. Obama promised transparency! Where’s the transparency? Harrumph!
Whatever.
Voters are more concerned with big, important issues that will be decided by the outcome of this election. They are concerned with Republican plans to dismantle Medicare and Social Security. They’re concerned with rich people getting MORE tax cuts while everyone else loses tax deductions. They’re concerned with Republican obstructionism in the Senate and Congress. They’re concerned with the potential loss of Obamacare. There’s a lot at stake in this election.
There will be plenty of time to deal with the transparency issue after the election during Obama’s second term.
Clearly you are an Obama supporter. Please vote for him again this year so that we can really see what great things will follow. I challenge you to come back here in 4 years and honestly assess his performance.