Craig Newmark: What’s Going Right in Washington

Anil Dash, who’s a lot smarter than me, blogs about stuff like the relative importance of the iPad versus the State of the Union address. Regarding the latter, he has a pretty impressive list regarding things getting better, like:

The last U.S. Marines are leaving Iraq.

Credit card companies can no longer charge interest on fees, and can’t retroactively raise your interest rate on existing balances.

We know who visits the White House, and who they’re affiliated with.

We responded, imperfectly but with heart and sincere effort, to the disaster in Haiti. Just as we wish we had after Katrina. Leadership matters most in emergencies.

Our current President readily admits when he’s made mistakes, respects the validity of arguments that he disagrees with, and has members of the opposing party in his cabinet.

The Department of Homeland Security now allocates its security spending according to threats, not by spending the same amount of money on Montana as it does on New York.

My 401k is up 30% since the current President took office

I’ve been talking to a lot of rank and file people, here’s a little I’d add:

This Administration is telling us where the money went, instead of hiding that.

They’ve encourage gov’t workers to fix they way they work, instead of telling workers that what they do doesn’t matter.

They’re trying to root out corruption, rather than the opposite.

Back pay for stop-lossed veterans; serious about medical and educational benefits, which is to say they actually support the troops, rather than the opposite.

That works for me, as a libertarian pragmatist.

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