After a full day of inaugural celebrations, President Obama didn’t waste time getting down to business. Even during all the partying, he requested a hold on all Guantanamo Bay prison prosecutions. Today he signed the order to close the detention center, shut down CIA overseas military prisons and review war crime trials. As a reflection of his for the people campaign, Obama set the tone with his White Staff yesterday. “The White House is the people’s House”, he said. He laid new ground rules for lobbyists and stricter restrictions such as ban on gifts to administrators. His staff will even sign a contract to abide by these terms. President Obama firmly said that they are to serve people’s interests, “not your own, your business or your connections”. To make government accountable, he said that you have to make it transparent. “Transparency and rule of the law will be the touchstone of my presidency”.
President Obama is making his staff and himself accountable as well. “I’m going to check all your backgrounds. There’s too much secrecy. Want to create a new standard of openness”, he continued. He won’t withhold information from the public however and whenever he so desires. An independent party consisting of the Attorney General and White House Counsel will be involved in President Obama’s decisions for further review and analysis.
His staff is not immune to the country’s financial crises either. He said right off the bat that he was going to place a salary freeze for about 100 of his staff. According to CNN, employees making more than 100K will be affected. Hmmmm, our California budget is in a state of emergency thanks to a whopping 42 billion dollar deficit. The legislators can’t agree on anything. If the impasse continues to drag on, payments such as tax refunds and student grants could be delayed. Great! While the Governator and the state legislators are butting heads, he and his staff should follow Obama’s steps by streamlining all costs necessary such as their own pockets but I digress.
There’s been talk of how difficult, among the many other big challenges; it will be for the President to keep in touch with the people, now that he’s in the White House bubble. The official White House website www.whitehouse.gov is a testament of his continuing effort to keep tabs on the public. Unlike the old Bush website, this one is fresh, engaging and appealing. People can get weekly updates, send emails to the President and blog to the White House staff. The weekly Video Address, compared to the old Radio address is another example of how his administration is continuing to utilize the Web 2.0 which he successfully used to win his campaign.
The honeymoon is over and the pressure is on. Considering the heavy burden and mess that George W left to clean up, so far so good Mr. President. It’s only Day 3. Keep up the good work.
Comments