Obama campaigned with promises of ending special interest access to legislation, regulations, and contracts.
He said he would not appoint lobbyists to his administration, not allow his appointees to influence issues relating to their prior employers, and not allow his appointees to return as lobbyists attempting to influence his adminstration later on.
But on his first day in office, it became clear that Obama had no intention of fulfilling his campaign promises. He included a loophole in his executive order regarding political appointees, a loophole designed to let him backtrack on his campaign promises. The loophole? A waiver clause that specifically allows former lobbyists to serve in the Obama administration.
That waiver clause has already been used multiple times and in other cases, the Obama administration hasn't even bothered envoking the waiver clause before appointing former lobbysists to positions in his administration.
And on top of that enormous loophole, with the adminstration not even concerned with using it to justify breaking Obama's campaign promises, Obama has also decided that he will allow former lobbyists to serve without the waiver, if they recuse themselves from issues concerning their lobbying interests. But the Obama adminstration has not been forthcoming with a description of its recusal process, nor have they been willing to release any documentation of specific recusals.
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Clearly the lobbying interests still have their privileged access to the halls of power. Obama had no interest in being a President of the people. He told us what we wanted to hear. He has taken more special interest money than any candidate in history. He is a big business President.
He appointed Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, to his Jobs Council and as chairmain of his Council of Economic Advisers...so again Obama is talking the people's talk, about jobs, but giving the reigns to big corporate interests...so how has that worked out? Immelt is busy moving a bunch of GE jobs from America to China, so that's how he's helping out on Obama's job council....not by creating jobs, but by making the overhead lower for GE...sounds like special interests at play in the heart of the Obama adminstration.
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