In his weekly You Tube/radio address, President Barack Obama calls for fiscal discipline and says his administration plans to take steps to institutionalize it:
4/25/09: Your Weekly Address from White House on Vimeo.
ABC News’ Jake Trapper puts this address into perspective noting that the Obama administration is now coming under fire:
President Obama alludes to the $100 million he this week asked his Cabinet to locate in savings (amidst his $3.55 trillion budget proposal) and calls on Congress to pass “pay-as-you-go” legislation. He says his administration will create incentives for agencies to cut costs and identify savings, and pledges to establish a process for government employees to submit their ideas on how their agency can save money and perform better.
In addition, the president says, “we will reach beyond the halls of government. Many businesses have innovative ways of using technology to save money, and many experts have new ideas to make government work more efficiently. Government can –- and must –- learn from them. So later this year, we will host a forum on reforming government for the 21st century, so that we’re also guided by voices that come from outside of Washington.”
The president’s talk about protecting taxpayer dollars comes at the end of a week where two independent government watchdogs expressed concerns that the Obama administration is not ensuring sufficient oversight over the trillions in new government spending.
The Office of Special Inspector General for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program Neil Barofsky called on the Treasury Department to require all institutions that receive TARP funds to report how they use the money.
….The Government Accountability Office issued a report on the $787 billion stimulus bill reporting that officials from most of the states surveyed “expressed concerns regarding the lack of Recovery Act funding provided for accountability and oversight. Due to fiscal constraints, many states reported significant declines in the number of oversight staff — limiting their ability to ensure proper implementation and management of Recovery Act funds.”
According to ABC, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs first told the network he’d get back to them, and the administration later noted specific efforts to Vice President Joe Biden to look into GAO concerns.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.