Source:
Associated PressAP: Clinton Touts Government Reform
Email this Story
Apr 14, 7:36 PM (ET)
By HOLLY RAMER
HAMPTON, N.H. (AP) - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that her failed 1993 health care plan showed her that perception counts as much as reality when it comes to advocating openness in government.
The Democratic presidential front-runner continued campaigning in New Hampshire a day after announcing a government reform plan aimed at making government more competent, cost-effective and transparent. Citing the Bush administration's "culture of cronyism," she vowed to improve accountability by cutting back on no-bid government contracts, banning former Cabinet officials from lobbying their former colleagues and requiring all government agencies to post their budgets and related documents online.
Democratic presidential hopeful, U.S. Sen., Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. acknowledges several hundred people as she arrives at a campaign event in a high school gym in Hampton, N.H., Saturday, April 14, 2007.(AP Photo/Jim Cole)
As first lady, Clinton oversaw a massive project to overhaul the nation's health care system. Before the plan collapsed, she faced frequent criticism that the task force she led too often operated in secrecy.
Though Clinton dismissed suggestions Saturday that the project wasn't as open as she promises to make the next Clinton administration, she acknowledged that "the perception (of secrecy) was there."
Read more:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070414/D8OGMBB81.html