Obama to use executive orders for immediate impact - Yahoo! News

"Obama was elected on a promise of change, but the nature of the job makes it difficult for presidents to do much that has an immediate impact on the lives of average people. Congress plans to take up a second economic aid plan before year's end — an effort Obama supports. But it could be months or longer before taxpayers see the effect.

Obama could use his executive powers to at least signal that Washington is changing."


Another Obama initiative, from CNET News:

"Obama will appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.

The Obama administration's CTO job could be one of those bureaucratic positions that ends up consumed by turf wars rather than making real progress against initiatives. CNET News' Stephanie Condon noted the overlaps, which could turn into conflicts, between a White House CTO and CTOs working in various agencies:

The jurisdiction of a CTO could overlap with other agencies or executive positions in areas such as innovation policy, cybersecurity, or intellectual property enforcement. To avoid those overlaps, the Obama team will have to decide, for instance, whether the CTO would focus on goals like making agencies more efficient or take on a broader agenda such as dictating policy."