GOVERNMENT ETHICS/CORRUPTION According to the Obama website, Senator Obama will:
• Create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings for public access.
• Establish an independent watchdog agency to oversee the investigation of congressional ethics violations.
• Create a “contracts and influence” database to disclose how much federal contractors spend on lobbying, what contracts they get, and how well they complete them.
• Ensure any tax breaks for corporate recipients—or tax earmarks—are publicly available on the Internet in an easily searchable format.
• End abuse of no-bid contracts by requiring that nearly all contract orders over $25,000 be competitively awarded.
• Allow the public to review and comment on non-emergency bills on the White House website for five days before the president signs them.
• Disclose the name of the legislator who asked for each earmark with written justification 72 hours before an earmark can be approved by the full Senate.
• Require Cabinet officials to have periodic national broadband town hall meetings to discuss issues before their agencies.
• Disclose communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and White House staff to the public.
• Require appointees who lead executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct significant business of the agency in public so any citizen can see in person or watch on the Internet these debates.
• Make the timely release of presidential records quick and easy.
• Free the Executive Branch from special interest influence.
• Stop pork barrel spending: the willful setting aside of taxpayer dollars for the pet projects of special interests, often through last minute additions to appropriations bills.
• Enforce long-standing prohibitions on corporate and union contributions to federal political parties.
• Enforce sensible donation limits.
• Disclose how candidates and campaigns are funded.
• Enforce rules that promote maximum public participation in the political process and limit opportunities for corruption.
• Stop the “revolving door” by which lawmakers and other influential officials leave their posts and become lobbyists for the special interests they have aided.