Hope and Fail

Obama signs jobs bill one day after it passes

It’s been a bad Sunshine Week for President Obama.

First, the Associated Press reports that the Obama administration blocked Freedom of Information Act requests at a higher rate than the Bush administration.

And today, the president signed the HIRE Act — which passed the Senate yesterday. So much for Obama’s promise to post bills online for Americans to review for five days after they pass before signing them.

From CBS News:

President Obama today signed into law a $17.5 billion jobs bill that he said will spur hiring and help small business owners.

In signing the bill, called the HIRE Act, the president said that while government can’t be the only solution to address lagging employment in the wake of the recession, it can serve to “promote a strong, dynamic private sector” that can drive job creation.

… The Senate passed the bill on Wednesday.

During the campaign, candidate Obama said this:

When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it.

His campaign Web site promised:

Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.

And the first post of the White House blog after Obama took the oath of office said this:

One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.

As mentioned, this is Sunshine Week. For those not in the news media, the purpose of Sunshine Week is to promote open government and freedom of information. Obama campaigned on its principles, and issued this statement a mere two days ago:

I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever, an effort that will strengthen our democracy and ensure the public’s trust in their government. We came to Washington to change the way business was done, and part of that was making ourselves accountable to the American people by opening up our government.

… We will continue to work toward an unmatched level of transparency, participation and accountability across the entire Administration.

Yeah, whatever.