May 12 2010

Livestreaming the closed door debt commission pt. 2

(2PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Last week I livestreamed the first closed door meeting of the president’s fiscal commission. I did this out of frustration that we received no response to a letter that we sent from 81 organizations representing over 61 million Americans, asking that all the work of the commission be done in the open. Letters were also sent by Chairman John Conyers and Minority Leader Boehner asking for transparency.

Dan Froomkin sums up the problem with closed door meetings for the commission at the Huffington Post saying,

The move only heightens suspicion that rather than forging a national consensus on future spending priorities, the commission’s work will consist of backroom dealings in which members of the Washington aristocracy find high-minded excuses for cutting the social safety net.

You can watch the highlights of our previous livestream here

Today is the mandatory spending working group and we will be livestreaming it the whole time (we brought a power cord this time).

Below is the livestream, it will be playing between 9:30am and 11:30am.

The members of each working group are shown below.

members

2 comments

  1. gained a bad reputation about closed door meeting – remember the deal it struck with Big Pharma behind closed doors.  

    Are they meeting with people from Pete Peterson Foundation?

    How are they going to cut Soc. Sec. and Medicare?

    Are they going to privatize Soc. Sec. and turn over to Wall Street?

    The Obama Administration must be hiding something.  

  2. RebelCapitalist, Peterson is deeply involved in this effort to “rob” us of OUR Social Security and Medicare monies.

    . . . . Watching the proceedings today, it’s clear the Peterson/Presidential Commission connection can’t be overstated.  Both Commission co-chairs and Commission members participated in today’s well-financed event and as, James Ridgeway reports , Peterson will also fund the Presidential Commission’s Town hall meetings:

    In June, according to the Washington Post,  Obama’s deficit commission will be participating in a 20-city electronic town hall meeting, put together by an organization called America Speaks. It is financed by Peterson, along with the MacArthur Foundation and Kellogg Foundation. This is a truly unusual event because it marks the first time a presidential commission’s activities are financed by a private group that has long been lobbying the government on the very subjects the commission is supposed to “study.”

    In additon, Fiscal Commission’s Director, Bruce Reed, reported yesterday that one of the three staffers at the Commission is “on loan” from the Committee for a Responsible Budget, which is- you guessed it- yet another organization funded by Peter Peterson. . . .

    Of course, as usual pro forma,when things go on behind closed doors, you can bet that Americans are being sold out in one way or another.

Comments have been disabled.