Posted on 02/15/2009 8:47:42 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Ready for some political and economic rock 'n' roll? It's happening. In 2008, Americans were rocked by the beginnings of a deflationary credit collapse and Uncle Sam's extraordinary bailout/nationalization agenda. In 2009, Americans will be rolled. If you think 2008 was expensive, wait until you see what President Obama's band has in store for us.
In politics, people are policy. The band of policy players that President Obama has assembled gives some hints as to the chart-topping tunes we can expect to be hearing -- bigger, even more costly government, and a beleaguered private sector that will be hard-pressed to create new jobs.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's testimony during her confirmation hearings epitomizes Obama's priorities. Despite multiple risks to American interests around the globe, Clinton declared that her top priority was to place Americans under the control of multilateral global-warming agreements. Do Secretary Clinton and President Obama really believe that American interests will be advanced by curtailing our consumption of energy, thereby further slowing economic growth in the midst of a severe recession?
Joining Mrs. Clinton in putting growth-killing measures such as carbon taxes at the top of this year's policy agenda are Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and environmental/climate
"czarina" Carole Browner. Chu is a global-warming alarmist who has echoed Obama's rhetoric about reducing our consumption of coal (which generates half our country's electricity) by making it prohibitively expensive to burn. Browner, since serving as the heavy-handed administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under Clinton-Gore, has more recently held a leadership position on a socialist international committee dedicated to transferring wealth from the United States to much of the rest of the world.
Obama's Secretary of the Treasury (which includes the IRS) Tim Geithner "forgot" to pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes to Uncle Sam. It would seem inappropriate to most Americans to place such a person in charge of federal tax collections, but behold the zeal of partisans, who regularly rant about "the rich" and businesses not paying enough taxes, to make excuses for Geithner. Such an attitude is elitist and antidemocratic, a repudiation of the rule of law, but the partisans are willing to give this high-income American a free pass as long as he supports their plans to increase government control over Americans' wealth.
Geithner wasn't the only tax hypocrite tapped by Obama to serve in his cabinet. Another, of course, was former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who had been tapped by Obama as Secretary of Health and Human Services, until his tax "problems" became too much even for liberals to swallow. (Daschle has long favored socialized medicine. He was making $83,000 per month as a consultant in addition to his lavish Senate pension and his wife's lucrative income as a lobbyist. He believes in government transfers of wealth from rich to poor, as long as it isn't his wealth.)
Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis is solidly pro-union. She has sponsored legislation to deprive workers of secret ballots when voting on union representation. Her appointment underscores Obama's commitment to unions. The last time the rules of the game were tilted in labor's favor was during the Great Depression. Then, newly empowered unions crippled business activity and profitability, which consequently stifled job growth and increased unemployment.
Perhaps most disturbing of all is the appointment of Eric Holder as attorney general. As deputy attorney general in the '90s, Holder worked on Bill Clinton's pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose debt to justice was apparently paid via generous contributions to the Clinton library. But the primary problem with Holder is his apparent view that American businessmen are more dangerous than al-Qaida fighters. Consider: The "Holder Memorandum" of 1999 was designed to coerce businesses into forgoing rights to legal counsel, infringing their Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. In contrast to his desire for American businesses to have fewer legal protections, Holder favors greater legal protections for captive Islamic combatants who seek to kill Americans.
President Obama has assembled a cabinet that shares his love of Big Government and concomitant antipathy for free markets. That same philosophy is embodied in Obama's stimulus plan, which has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with politics. Like FDR's New Deal, increasing government control of the economy will not stimulate economic growth. It will, however, stimulate and strengthen the Democrats' hold on power by channeling vast sums of money to Democratic special interests.
The Obama band is ready to roll, and we in the private sector are the ones who will get rocked. Brace yourself for the reverb.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The author is a faculty member, economist and contributing scholar with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College in Pennsylvania.
Excellent, heartbreaking summary.
The irony is this -— Obama and his supporters have been very critical of Bush’s handling of our national security and war efforts.
So what does Obama do ? He goes on to rehire the same Defense Secretary and a war supporter for the NSA. This implies that Bush must be doing something right for Obama to continue with the same cabinet members handling war, national security and defense.
But then the MSM would rather not mention it.
Sorry, couldn't help myself. Someone stole part of your title, by the way.
Um, ‘scuse me, but isn’t this what Freepers and the rest of the conservatives were saying all along?
they have something on him
All of these policy wonks are products of years and years of brainwashing by the leftist education/environmental doctrines...they truly believe in this nonsense - God help us all...
Solis isn’t the only union pimp in the Obama administration. Anna Burger, one of Obama’s top economic advisers, is the sect’y/treas of the SEIU. She has sent letters to all banks receiving TARP funds, telling them that they are forbidden to donate money or speak out against the card check legislation, as a condition of receiving the funds.
That sounds like a prime opportunity to take her out. A conspiracy to deprive citizens of rights under color of authority. She has no right to suppress the First Amendment rights of the banks or their employees. Those letters will be prima facie evidence of her criminal intent.
Anna Burger is not in a position that requires Senate approval. That is the reason that she was able to write the letters, acting with impunity, without the fear of being prosecuted by Eric Halder. Can you imagine if someone in the Bush administration did such a thing?
No, no, she has the authority of the economic council that Obama has set up to regulate the recipients of TARP money in the financial sector. Her authority is given to her from Obama. Now, that is kind of questionable because the president is not supposed to have authority to do this. It’s unconstitutional, though, no matter what. This a a clear suspension of the constitutional right to free speech.
Keeping on Secretary Gates was the only Cabinet decision of Obama’s that I have liked, but I doubt he’ll stay in there for the full term—at most one or two years.
later
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.