January 30, 2009 11:12AM # Obama’s First Broken Campaign Promise By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) --- SHARE Over on the [Tech Liberation Front blog](http://techliberation.com/), I’ve been following the Obama administration’s early steps on transparency, a subject we dove into at a December Cato policy forum called “[Just Give Us the Data!](https://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=5475)” President Obama [committed](http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/change_has_come_to_whitehouse-gov/) to make his administration “the most open and transparent in history.” Boilerplate promises like this often go into campaigns and electioneering. But as a senator, Obama was a leading proponent of the [Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act](http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/200500584.html), which created [USASpend​ing​.gov](http://www.usaspending.gov/). Unlike typical politicians promising the most ethical \[whatever-they’re-running-for\] in history, President Obama and his staff know what transparency is and how to deliver it. Breaking from the pack, who were (rightly) appreciative of early presidential memoranda calling for [new guidelines governing the Freedom of Information Act](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/FreedomofInformationAct/) and an [Open Government Directive](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment/), I noted the absence of concrete action on the part of the White House itself. The new administration [did not port over](http://techliberation.com/2009/01/21/is-the-new-obama-administration-walking-away-from-transparency-already/) the transition’s excellent “[Seat at the Table](http://change.gov/open_government/yourseatatthetable)” program, in which documents submitted to the transition team were posted online and subjected to public comment. That failure I called “[The Transparency Dog that Didn’t Bark](http://techliberation.com/2009/01/22/the-transparency-dog-that-didnt-bark/).” The [economic stimulus bill](http://www.washingtonwatch.com/blog/2009/01/18/stimulus-bill-text/) contains a helpful, [if imperfect](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10150699-46.html), requirement for disclosure of stimulus spending on a site called [Recov​ery​.gov](http://www.recovery.gov) — perhaps the most-visited non-existent Web site in history. The White House is not walking the talk on transparency, and yesterday the president violated a campaign promise on transparency. Instead of posting bills sent to him by Congress for five days and taking public comment, [President Obama signed non-emergency legislation the day after receiving it](http://techliberation.com/2009/01/29/walking-away-from-transparency-step-two/). [Poli​ti​Fact​.com](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/) rated this as President Obama’s [first broken campaign promise](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/jan/29/obama-first-broken-promise/). The president’s good intentions are not in doubt, but nobody ever said delivering on transparency was going to be easy. So far, he seems to be having a rough time of it. The Obama administration can still deliver revolutionary change in the transparency area, but it has to actually work at it and take concrete steps. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).