Czars Are Not Good

The czars that the Obama administration has appointed are undertaking tasks that they are not Constitutionally able to enforce and it is troubling that this administration and Congress believe there is nothing wrong with the idea. Appointed advisers, or czars, are not new with President Obama, they were in place long before him. However, he has taken the position to new levels.

The problems with the czars? They are not approved, like other cabinet and administration appointments, by the Senate. So they are not vetted or is there investigation and discussion on their merits and their shortcomings before a panel. They are simply appointed.

This week, companies that received TARP funds were told by the "Pay Czar" Kenneth Feinberg that he was cutting executive compensation by an average of 50%. Read about it in the Wall Street Journal here.

Two different thoughts on this -

1. If you are a company that accepted bailout TARP money then you know that you had just sold your soul to the devil. In an open market you would have folded but you effectively gave up your control to the federal government. You had to know that something like this would come. Brilliant PR strategy by the White House on this move but with a good chance at backfiring on them.
2. This position of this czar is so ripe for corruption due to the large amounts of money involved not only in the compensation of these executives but the fortune of many mega companies that are affected when talent leaves the firm if they don't feel like they are being rewarded for their hard-work. You could be on the side of the affected company and watch your talented executives leave - so you do anything you can to stop that, including making donations to certain campaign funds. Or you could be on the side of the competition - you would love to see the brain drain from your competitor. So you make deals and contributions. This administration has shown a propensity for having more skeletons in their closet in the first year than the previous 6 administrations combined.

Nowhere is the idea of a czar considered Constitutionally sound, it is independent of any branch and has no oversight.

Get rid of the czars.

So 13,000 people die last year from the regular flu and nothing is ever mentioned but 1,000 people die this year from "the swine flu" and the Obama administration feels like it needs to declare an emergency? 120 million vaccinations promised by mid-October but only 12 million (10%) delivered?

When a state of emergency, like war, is declared by a government then it gains extra powers that it would not normally be granted in times of peace to become the "protector" of the people. A prime example of this is the Patriot Act that is still around that a all-Democratic Congress renewed this year. The Patriot Act is perhaps the most un-Constitutional piece of legislation since the establishment of the Federal Reserve and the income tax. Why isn't this state of emergency being considered at the state level? A central government with this much power is so dangerous.

Two other notes, why don't the Obama children get the vaccination? It's not available to them? Come on, give me a break. (Update 10/29/2009 - the Obama girls did get their shot, thanks to Christina for the story link). And a Democratic Congress and Democratic President are cowards for attaching an incredibly short-sighted hate crimes bill to the Defense bill that was signed today. It couldn't stand on its own so these cowards put it with legislation that they knew would pass. These men and women do not deserve to represent their people and if they are representative of their constituency, so help us God.