President Obama Refuses to Release “Cash for Clunkers” Report

  There has been one theme to Barack Obama’s presidency to date; his perceived need for congress to move quickly. Barack Obama has either manufactured or exploited what he calls crisis in order to quickly push his socialist agenda through congress.

  But there is an exception to his call for quick action; his urge to move quickly is abandoned when it comes to releasing information that is contrary or potentially damaging to his position.

  We have seen this on a few issues already. We first saw the Obama administration go into slow down mode when the White House refused to release some papers on Sonia Sotomayor. We then saw him continue his slow down when it came to releasing a congressionally mandated economic report and again when it came to issuing a report on the reduction of government spending.

  What do these reports all have in common? They represent data that would run contrary to Obama’s stated goals, in order to keep up his public relations he held up releasing reports that could possibly be damaging to him.

 And now he is at it again, this time with the “cash for clunkers” program. Barack Obama is refusing to release the reports on the ill administrated “cash for clunkers” program. The speculation is that he is holding up this report because American car companies are not nearly reaping the benefits as foreign automakers, but it could just be that the program isn’t nearly as successful as we have been led to believe. We won’t know until he releases the report, but there must be something damaging there or else he would readopt his “move quickly” attitude to show the American people how good he is. This should be quite telling as the senate debates the issue of adding another $2 billion to this program.

  Barack Obama promised an era of transparency and so far he is failing on that front. He is transparent only when it is in his best interest, just as he is only willing to move quickly when it is in his best interest.

  One would think that if the “cash for clunkers” program was as successful as the president and the media have claimed than Barack Obama would have no problem releasing the report in an effort to show the senate why they should approve an additional $2 billion into the program. His unwillingness to release this report as the senate debates tripling the cost of the program should be enough in itself to persuade the senate to vote against more funding for the program.

  Barack Obama’s new era of transparency should be called the era of selective transparency; that would be far more accurate.