Administration Sets Another Record

[Dawg]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-sets-record-denying-censoring-government-files-29717039

Of course Θ lied="a more transparent, collaborative and participatory government"

BLUE LIB LUST FOR MORE Θ LIES

 

[Arkady]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-sets-record-denying-censoring-government-files-29717039

Of course Θ lied="a more transparent, collaborative and participatory government"

BLUE LIB LUST FOR MORE Θ LIES

I absolutely don't want to defend Obama on the topic of government transparency, since this is an area where his campaign rhetoric and his actual behavior could hardly be farther apart. I didn't vote for him in the primary, in 2008, but I came close, and the biggest selling point he had, for me, was that he was the first presidential candidate I'd ever heard put the goal of government transparency so prominently in his stump speeches. I was never an Obamabot, expecting him to fix Washington and lead us into some post-partisan age, but I genuinely did expect him to foster a meaningfully more transparent and accountable government than Bush did. And, instead, you could make a very strong argument he's created the least transparent administration in history.

Having said that, though, the backlog of FOIA reviews could also have something to do with government austerity. Since Obama's first month in office, the number of federal employees has decreased by 2%. Meanwhile, the population has grown by about 5%. So, we'd expect about a 5% increase in the burden on the government, other things being equal (including about a 5% uptick in FOIA-review workload), and yet 2% fewer people to carry that burden. The expected result of that government austerity would be poorer government performance, including longer wait times for FOIA reviews to happen. There's no such thing as a free lunch. When you downsize the government even as the population grows, you should expect worse service.

 

[marvin martian]

Having said that, though, the backlog of FOIA reviews could also have something to do with government austerity. Since Obama's first month in office, the number of federal employees has decreased by 2%. Meanwhile, the population has grown by about 5%. So, we'd expect about a 5% increase in the burden on the government, other things being equal (including about a 5% uptick in FOIA-review workload), and yet 2% fewer people to carry that burden. The expected result of that government austerity would be poorer government performance, including longer wait times for FOIA reviews to happen. There's no such thing as a free lunch. When you downsize the government even as the population grows, you should expect worse service.

I agree. So, given the promises Obama made about transparency, it would seem he dropped the ball on prioritizing it properly.

Of course, in the real world, when a company or organization has to deal with downsizing, one of the things they typically prioritize is not letting their level of customer service slide, so as to preserve their customer base. Since the government has no competition, they can, and do, tell their customers to simply f- off, which is what has happened with the FOIA request process.

 

[Arkady]

I agree. So, given the promises Obama made about transparency, it would seem he dropped the ball on prioritizing it properly.

Of course, in the real world, when a company or organization has to deal with downsizing, one of the things they typically prioritize is not letting their level of customer service slide, so as to preserve their customer base. Since the government has no competition, they can, and do, tell their customers to simply f- off, which is what has happened with the FOIA request process.

Everything the government does is about customer service, in one way or the other. So, that diminished number of federal employees, serving a bigger population, is going to need to cut one area of service or another. It's just a question of what it cuts. I, personally, wish they'd cut our vast military over-spend, rather than government transparency.

 

[marvin martian]

Everything the government does is about customer service, in one way or the other. So, that diminished number of federal employees, serving a bigger population, is going to need to cut one area of service or another. It's just a question of what it cuts. I, personally, wish they'd cut our vast military over-spend, rather than government transparency.

Given that Obama's campaign promises lined up with the scenario you describe above, he did the exact opposite of what he promised.

However, I would debate your premise that everything the government does is about customer service. It's true that they produce nothing of tangible value, however, I believe a lot of what they do is solely for the purpose of perpetuating their own existence.

 

[UPNYA2]

I absolutely don't want to defend Obama on the topic of government transparency, since this is an area where his campaign rhetoric and his actual behavior could hardly be farther apart. I didn't vote for him in the primary, in 2008, but I came close, and the biggest selling point he had, for me, was that he was the first presidential candidate I'd ever heard put the goal of government transparency so prominently in his stump speeches. I was never an Obamabot, expecting him to fix Washington and lead us into some post-partisan age, but I genuinely did expect him to foster a meaningfully more transparent and accountable government than Bush did. And, instead, you could make a very strong argument he's created the least transparent administration in history.

Having said that, though, the backlog of FOIA reviews could also have something to do with government austerity. Since Obama's first month in office, the number of federal employees has decreased by 2%. Meanwhile, the population has grown by about 5%. So, we'd expect about a 5% increase in the burden on the government, other things being equal (including about a 5% uptick in FOIA-review workload), and yet 2% fewer people to carry that burden. The expected result of that government austerity would be poorer government performance, including longer wait times for FOIA reviews to happen. There's no such thing as a free lunch. When you downsize the government even as the population grows, you should expect worse service.

"Since Obama's first month in office, the number of federal employees has decreased by 2%."

But did this 2% decrease in employees involve ALL areas of our government equally?

How do we know how many employees involved in the FOIA-review, number or percentage wise, were actually cut? Hell, how do we know that ANY employees involved in the FOIA-review were cut? What if 1.5% of the government employees whose jobs were cut were doing janitorial or lawn work? We simply don't know there was ANY reduction, do we?

And what of the 5% growth in population? YOU state, "So, we'd expect about a 5% increase in the burden on the government, other things being equal (including about a 5% uptick in FOIA-review workload).

Why?

Why do you assume it would result in an equal increase in people seeking FOIA-reviews? Does an increase in population result in an equal increase of demand on ALL government supplied services?

No, it does not.

So where is it you are getting these numbers you are using in this feeble-assed, at BEST, attempt to try to somehow justify this lie by your lib/d im demi-god?

"There's no such thing as a free lunch."

Poetic revelation........... New rule........NO dem/lib whose very lives are dedicated to trying to get more and more "free" goods and services for their "lifelong victimhood" voter base by demanding more and more of the monies of other citizens be confiscated by the gubment can ever, ever, EVER dare utter those words to anyone else.

Sorry, it is only fair.

 

[Arkady]

It's true that they produce nothing of tangible value

Irony: man using Internet for hours every day says government produces nothing of tangible value.

 

[Arkady]

How do we know how many employees involved in the FOIA-review, number or percentage wise, were actually cut?

I don't have that data. I could break it down by larger groups (e.g., Post Office, military, etc.), but not by job function. But when you get a fairly substantial downsizing in the face of what would reasonably be expected to be a fairly substantial uptick in workload, something's got to give.

"So, we'd expect about a 5% increase in the burden on the government, other things being equal (including about a 5% uptick in FOIA-review workload).
Why?

Because there are approximately 5% more people potentially interested in getting access to federal information. That needn't mean a 5% increase in FOIA requests. It could mean no increase or a 10% increase. But, the default assumption would be that the added people are, as a group, neither more nor less likely to want that information than the people in the previous population, so you'd assume about a 5% increase, just as you'd assume, other things being equal, about 5% more people on the roads, 5% more stock trades, and so on. Some of those assumptions will be high, some of them will be low, but the best bet will be that on average it's a decent estimate of the overall increase in burden on the government. And even if it doesn't show up in more FOIA requests, if it does show up elsewhere to an even greater degree, that could force reallocation of personnel from FOIA review to some other task, so you end up with the same issue.

So where is it you are getting these numbers you are using in this feeble-assed, at BEST, attempt to try to somehow justify this lie by your lib/d im demi-god?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census.

New rule........NO dem/lib whose very lives are dedicated to trying to get more and more "free" goods and services for their "lifelong victimhood" voter base by demanding more and more of the monies of other citizens be confiscated by the gubment can ever, ever, EVER dare utter those words to anyone else.

It's not my fault that you right-wingers think that you can get something for nothing by cutting government spending without suffering diminished government services. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and the right-wingers need to grow up and deal with that hard fact, rather than thinking the laissez fairies will come down and give us all free picnic baskets if we banish the big bad federal bureaucrats from the neighborhood of make-believe.

 

[Dawg]

Irony: man using Internet for hours every day says government produces nothing of tangible value.

You may thing Gore Invented the Internet
you'd be wrong

 

[Arkady]

You may thing Gore Invented the Internet
you'd be wrong

It's about DARPA. Look it up.

 

[as seen on tv]

I absolutely don't want to defend Obama on the topic of government transparency, since this is an area where his campaign rhetoric and his actual behavior could hardly be farther apart. I didn't vote for him in the primary, in 2008, but I came close, and the biggest selling point he had, for me, was that he was the first presidential candidate I'd ever heard put the goal of government transparency so prominently in his stump speeches. I was never an Obamabot, expecting him to fix Washington and lead us into some post-partisan age, but I genuinely did expect him to foster a meaningfully more transparent and accountable government than Bush did. And, instead, you could make a very strong argument he's created the least transparent administration in history.

Having said that, though, the backlog of FOIA reviews could also have something to do with government austerity. Since Obama's first month in office, the number of federal employees has decreased by 2%. Meanwhile, the population has grown by about 5%. So, we'd expect about a 5% increase in the burden on the government, other things being equal (including about a 5% uptick in FOIA-review workload), and yet 2% fewer people to carry that burden. The expected result of that government austerity would be poorer government performance, including longer wait times for FOIA reviews to happen. There's no such thing as a free lunch. When you downsize the government even as the population grows, you should expect worse service.

who didn't see THIS coming? "government austerity" creates a huge backlog in FOIA responses, but doesn't impact white house dog walkers, "caligraphers" ($95,000 a year each); separate jets for the obama family on vacation departures; or even funding for Netanyahu's political opposition.

wash - rinse - spin. the american public is totally gullible.

 

[Arkady]

who didn't see THIS coming? "government austerity" creates a huge backlog in FOIA responses, but doesn't impact white house dog walkers, "caligraphers" ($95,000 a year each); separate jets for the obama family on vacation departures; or even funding for Netanyahu's political opposition.

wash - rinse - spin. the american public is totally gullible.

Feel free to haul out your standard-issue Obama attacks, but the math doesn't change. We have 2% fewer federal employees trying to handle what we should expect to be about 5% more work. That's going to mean a decline in government services. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Austerity has a cost.