Spend Some Time with Henry Waxman

Henry Waxman recently sat down with Thomas Edsall from the Huffington Post, and the resultant interview is a surprisingly insightful read.

In case you don't know who he is: Henry Waxman, Congressman representing California's 30th District, is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform committee.

When the Democrats took over after the 2006 elections, Waxman put together the oversight agenda he describes on his website as well as in the HuffPo interview. Under Waxman's purview, the Oversight Committee is responsible for making sure that tax dollars get spent the way they were meant to. They also go after fraud on contracts for rebuilding New Orleans and Katrina as well as any other fiscal abuses. They then tackle the Herculean task of making the Bush administration accountable, while also keeping an eye on all of the federal agencies to make sure they're doing what they need to be doing.

It is a great many tasks to consider, and the interview is quite interesting. For everyone that's been hoping to throw open the trapdoor and expose the Bush administration to the cleansing power of sunlight, Waxman's your guy.