What's at the site? Read on for 13 examples (contracts with KBR/Halliburton, VECO, and General Atomics, Tom Delay's pork and Duke Cunningham's backers, no bid contracts with defense contractors, contracts with shadowy Blackwater subsidiaries, declining support for homeless veterans with increasing support for abstinence programs, spending on guided missiles, maintenance of dams, and stranger things including flags, perfumes, hand tools, and boll weevil eradication).
I also talk about how this fits into Sen. Obama's broader plans to make government transparent.
beachmom has a great diary up on DailyKos laying out a fight on the floor of the United States Senate last year over a provision that would disclose the sponsors of earmarks. Nine Democratic senators, including Obama and not Clinton, resisted their own party leadership's efforts to kill the provision and eventually managed to ensure that the provision stayed in the ethics legislation.
For more on Obama's record on ethics legislation in the United States Senate, I wrote a diary some time ago focusing on his amendment requiring lawmakers to disclose fundraising bundlers and his strong support of creating an independent ethics watchdog to police Congress.
At the last New Hampshire debate, moderator Charlie Gibson ridiculed the sweeping ethics reform package that the new Democratic Congress passed at the beginning of 2007. The legislation included a ban on giving meals to members of Congress.
But, Charlie Gibson opined, it doesn't say anything about meals served standing up. What would prevent lobbyists from hosting standing cocktail parties and serving the same food as appetizers?
Another version of this criticism of ethics reform is that lobbyists might no longer be able to serve steaks, but they could just as well slice up the steak and serve it on a stick and call it an appetizer. What's the point of ethics legislation then? "Clearly" it has no impact.
Clinton has also previously mocked Obama's and Edwards' commitment not to take any donations from federally registered lobbyists, from those who are gainfully employed to persuade them. At the YearlyKos debate back during the summer, Clinton argued, "A lot of these lobbyists whether you like it or not, represent real Americans."
So, to hear Senator Clinton tell the story, the most comprehensive lobbying reform in more than thirty years—and one of the major accomplishments of the Democrats controlling Congress—was a joke. [...]
To hear Senator Clinton spin the tale, the law was a meaningless effort because lobbyists can still serve cheese platters and mini-weenies on a toothpick at a stand-up gathering, when just a few months ago they could feed targeted elected officials and their staffs at the finest restaurants in DC and elsewhere.
This is an argument against corruption reform straight out of GOP backrooms and the gilded offices of K Street.
Clinton has mocked sweeping ethics reforms and refused to alter the way her campaign does business. Moreover, she has demonstrated a fundamental lack of sympathy for the argument that lobbyists hold too much power in Washington. There's more...
So far I have wrote about Barack Obama's strong stands on public financing of elections and media reform. Today I am going to talk about his work making government more transparent and more ethical. These are area's were he has gotten the most bills passed into law so hopefully this should be a interesting post.
I've posted a substantially revised version of this diary HERE.
Today witnessed the launch of USAspending.gov, which was created by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act by Tom Coburn and Barack Obama. The site enables tracking of $1 trillion in federal spending on contracts, grants, earmarks, and loans. The bill faced serious opposition, including anonymous holds by some of the biggest porkbarrel spenders (including Ted Stevens), but in the end, Coburn and Obama prevailed.
