Website

In an interview tonight with News Channel 8’s Keith Cate from Tampa, President Obama praised his administration's ability to "[use] the Internet more effectively" so that folks, "If they need a government service, they don’t have to navigate through 50 websites, they can go to one website so on those fronts we’ve done a lot, we’ve made a lot of progress."

The president's answer came in response to this question from Cate: “One final question, during the last campaign you talked about fundamentally changing the way Washington does business, a more efficient, more transparent, more creative Washington. Have you succeeded in that goal? Are we fundamentally better off? Is Washington a better place, is it working more efficiently?”

President Obama's is unable to say that he has fundamentally changed "the way Washington does business." Instead, he is only able to tout some website, pointing only to the smallest changes around the edges.

"You know what I can say is that the federal government as a whole, is working more efficiently," President Obama said. "I mean, we have, scrubbed agencies, gotten rid of old rules, eliminated programs that don’t work, you know, we’ve got about 500 rules that we have looked at and said you know, this is a bunch of red tape that’s just impeding progress or is not particularly customer friendly. We’ve used the Internet more effectively to create more transparency so people know where their tax dollars are going. If they need a government service, they don’t have to navigate through 50 websites, they can go to one website so on those fronts we’ve done a lot, we’ve made a lot of progress. Where I have not been able to succeed so far, but I haven’t given up, is changing the tone in Congress and creating an attitude between Democrats and Republicans where we focus on where do we agree, where are our common sense solutions, let’s stop trying to score political points or play to the next election instead of playing in the long game. We haven’t been able to do that, yet. And I’m the first one to acknowledge that there are times where it can be awfully frustrating. But what gives me confidence is that’s where the American people are, they’ve got common sense. They’re focused on trying to find solutions instead of just scoring political points and hopefully, over time, politicians who take that  same attitude will be rewarded."