This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, January 24th, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

It's now two years since the president announced that he would let all legislation sit in plain view for three days before

signing it.

So how has he done?

On the eve of the State of the Union address, Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy

Studies at the Cato Institute Institute grades the President on that important pledge.

President Obama made a great show of working on transparency at the beginning of his administration,

including in his first full day in office

signing a memorandum asking for greater transparency in the

in the administration in the execution of his office.

One of his most measurable campaign promises

was called Sunlight Before Signing.

That was the promise to post online for five days before he signed them the bills that he received

from Congress.

That's a promise that I've measured throughout the now two years of his term, and we have

statistics for how well he's done. In the first year his performance

was absolutely dismal. Of 124 bills Congress sent him he signed six for a 4.8% sunlight before signing average.

During 2010, the president improved quite a bit over 2009,

and you can see month over month improvement in sunlight before signing.

And with a very strong December, frankly, at the end of his first two years,

which was actually midnight on January 19th, the president creeped up to just over 50%. on his sunlight

...