Presidential Executive Order, spreads the wealth to failing cities

Presidential Executive Order 03/15/12

Establishing a White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/15/executive-order-establishing-white-house-council-strong-cities-strong-co

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to forge a partnership with local communities to provide them with comprehensive technical assistance to use and compete for Federal resources more effectively and efficiently, which will enable them to develop and implement economic strategies to become more competitive, sustainable, and inclusive.

Sec. 3. Mission and Function of the Council. The Council shall, to the extent permitted by law, work across agencies and offices to:

(a) coordinate the development and implementation of the various components of the SC2, as determined by the Co Chairs.

(b) coordinate agency efforts to ensure communities have access to comprehensive, localized technical assistance and planning resources to develop and execute their economic vision and strategies (including, where appropriate, efforts of existing committees or task forces related to providing technical assistance to local governments and improving their capacity to address economic issues);

(c) ensure that members of the Council incorporate SC2 implementation efforts into their agency annual performance plans and those efforts' outcomes into their annual performance results;

(d) provide recommendations to the President, through the Co Chairs on:

(i) policies for building local expertise in strengthening local economies;
(ii) changes to Federal policies and programs to address issues of special importance to cities and local governments that pertain to local capacity and economic growth;
(iii) implementing best practices from the SC2 initiative Government-wide to better support cities and local governments; and
(iv) opportunities to increase the flexible utilization of existing Federal program resources across agencies to enable more performance and outcome-based funding;

(e) encourage the development of technical assistance, planning, and financing tools and implementation strategies that can be coordinated or aligned across agencies to assist communities in building local capacity to address economic issues, engaging in comprehensive planning, and advancing regional collaboration; and

(f) facilitate the exchange of ideas and strategies to help communities address economic challenges and create sustained economic opportunity.

COMMON SENSE REVIEW

This executive order came down yesterday but they have been working on it since July 2011. Detroit’s Mayor Bing last year, met with Obama official to have Detroit be one of the cities under this directive..

However as Detroit is floundering to keep it together their leader agrees to a program that give do direction and seeks no outcomes. So what does the program offer?
Taxpayer money!

I know to many this statement is not surprising. When I was reading this order, I saw a pattern of words that show action but don’t describe outcome.

To create “Strong cities, Strong Communities”, there needs to be a goal and sound structure to obtain that goal…

However, let’s look at this Executive order for what it is…. Giving cities who are in considerable deficit free taxpayer money without changing anything…ie without correcting anything…

Good Luck Detroit, we will miss you!