A lot of conservatives seem to think President Obama spends too much time vacationing. That is the thrust of this illuminating graphical time-line from Grand Rants:
I can certainly understand why conservatives find this argument attractive. The President has demonstrated through his policies and speeches that he is out of touch with Americans. Pointing out his frequent vacations certainly enforces that narrative. But I think it also encourages an unhealthy attitude toward the presidency.
The idea that we expect a president to be on top of everything that happens across the entire country is something which one would expect to hear from the statist left, but not self-described individualists. I want a president less involved in the day-to-day affairs of most Americans. For the last century, our Presidents have gotten into the habit of responding to every little development, regardless of whether or not they have any legal or even moral authority on the matter. Even conservatives have become used to this state of affairs, and are now quick to denounce the White House for failing to quickly react to this or that matter that probably shouldn’t be the concern of a president in the first place.
The purpose of the executive branch is to enforce laws and command the armed forces. The President is Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief; he is not Nurturer-in-Chief, Therapist-in-Chief, Father-in-Chief or even Emergency Responder-in-Chief. If conservatives want to make progress in convincing the electorate that a massive welfare state is bad because it promotes an unhealthy dependency on government, we should start by showing how little we care whether or not President Obama is around to tell us how to react to every little social or economic problem that comes our way.
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Barack Obama’s decision to exile the ethics czar to the Czech Republic and leave his duties to White Hose Counsel Bob Bauer raises serious questions about the President’s commitment to transparency (not that we haven’t already seen enough to know the answers to these questions). As Timothy Carney reported recently, Bauer has no use for open government.
CommentsBauer is renowned as a “lawyer’s lawyer” and a legal expert. His resume, however, reads more “partisan advocate” than “good-government crusader.” Bauer came to the White House from the law firm Perkins Coie, where he represented John Kerry in 2004 and Obama during his campaign.
…Bauer’s own words — gathered by the diligent folks at the Sunlight Foundation — show disdain for openness and far greater belief in the good intentions of those in power than of those trying to check the powerful. In December 2006, when the Federal Election Commission proposed more precise disclosure requirements for parties, Bauer took aim at the practice of muckraking enabled by such disclosure.
On his blog, Bauer derided the notion “that politicians and parties are pictured as forever trying to get away with something,” saying this was an idea for which “there is a market, its product cheaply manufactured and cheaply sold.” In other words — we keep too close an eye on our leaders.
In August 2006 Bauer blogged, “disclosure is a mostly unquestioned virtue deserving to be questioned.” This is the man the White House has put in charge of making this the most open White House ever.
…Did I mention Bauer was a lobbyist? At Perkins Coie, Bauer lobbied on behalf of America Votes Inc., a Democratic 527 funded by the likes of the AFL-CIO and ACORN.
The Sunlight Foundation is also concerned about the fact the White House no longer has anyone whose job is transparency, as Eisen’s job was. John Wonderlich, at SunglightFoundation.com, lists a few transparency promises on which the president hasn’t followed through, including earmark transparency, a single Web site (Ethics.gov) with all ethics and accountability information, and better lobbying disclosure, among others.
As with his other reformer rhetoric, Obama’s transparency is mostly smoke and mirrors.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Obama-closes-curtain-on-transparency-468557-100595914.html#ixzz0ww4oJbAI
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Sometimes economic battles are fought by theorists without any strong empirical evidence existing on either side. Today’s battle, with Obama administration tax-and-spend Keynesians on one side, and supply-side economists on the other, is not such a case. As Richard Rahn shows in his Washington Times column, the evidence is really quite clear. Reagan’s supply-side cuts produced a strong recovery by the same point in time where Obama’s Keynesian “stimulating” has not.
Our choice now is simple. We can follow an economic model which has no empirical evidence suggesting it will work by allowing the taxes on capital gains, dividends and death to rise as planned at the end of the year. Or, we can keep those rates low – better yet still, we can reduce them – and get the results for which supply-side economics has already proven capable.
Cross-posted at Double Taxed.
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Fox News reports that a boat has struck an oil rig, sparking another spill in the Gulf. T-minus how long until Obama blames Bush?
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Speaks for itself:
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Allan Meltzer has an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal explaining the failures of Obamanomics. One of the causes he identifies is the high level of uncertainty surrounding tax rates and regulatory policy under this administration. Such uncertainty is the enemy of growth. Robert Higgs first introduced “regime uncertainty” in his 1997 article explaining how government policy extended the Great Depression. According to Meltzer, the Obama administration has so far proven oblivious to this lesson.
CommentsTwo overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.
…Mr. Obama has denied the cost burden on business from his health-care program, but business is aware that it is likely to be large. How large? That’s part of the uncertainty that employers face if they hire additional labor.
The president asks for cap and trade. That’s more cost and more uncertainty. Who will be forced to pay? What will it do to costs here compared to foreign producers? We should not expect businesses to invest in new, export-led growth when uncertainty about future costs is so large.
…Other aspects of the Obama economic program are equally problematic. The auto bailouts ran roughshod over the rule of law. Chrysler bondholders were given short shrift in order to benefit the auto workers union. By weakening the rule of law, the president opened the way to great mischief and increased investors’ and producers’ uncertainty. That’s not the way to get more investment and employment.
Almost daily, Mr. Obama uses his rhetorical skill to castigate businessmen who have the audacity to hope for profitable opportunities. No president since Franklin Roosevelt has taken that route. President Roosevelt slowed recovery in 1938-40 until the war by creating uncertainty about his objectives. It was harmful then, and it’s harmful now.
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So says Rep. Dan Burton about you-know-who:
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Britain’s Conservative MP Daniel Hannan, made famous in America for the viral YouTube video of his fiscal takedown of Gordon Brown, recently wrote of his regret for supporting Barack Obama in the general election of the 2008 presidential campaign. A European politician’s opinion of America’s president really isn’t of any importance, but his chillingly accurate description of our path toward Europeanization ought to be of concern for all who believe in promoting freedom, limited government, and economic prosperity:
CommentsNone of these advantages, however, can make up for the single most important fact of Obama’s presidency, namely that the federal government is 30 per cent larger than it was two years ago
This is not entirely Obama’s fault, of course. The credit crunch occurred during the dying days of the Bush administration, and it was the 43rd president who began the baleful policy of bail-outs and pork-barrel stimulus packages. But it was Obama who massively extended that policy against united Republican opposition. It was he who chose, in defiance of public opinion, to establish a state-run healthcare system. It was he who presumed to tell private sector employees what they could earn, he who adopted the asinine cap-and-trade rules, and he who re-federalised social security, thereby reversing the single most beneficial reform of the Clinton years.
These errors are not random. They amount to a comprehensive strategy of Europeanisation: Euro-carbon taxes, Euro-disarmament, Euro-healthcare, Euro-welfare, Euro-spending levels, Euro-tax levels and, inevitably, Euro-unemployment levels. Any American reader who wants to know where Obamification will lead should spend a week with me in the European Parliament. I’m working in your future and, believe me, you won’t like it.
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I take a look at Obama’s Oval Office speech on the Market Center blog:
CommentsPresident Obama used his first televised speech from the Oval Office, ostensibly on the topic of the BP oil spill, to run through his usual speech-making checklist, which includes blaming Bush and beating up on idealogical straw-men, like his long ago debunked contention that there was significant “deregulation” during the previous decade. He also continued his pattern of declaring every problem to be unprecedented, though he’s also undermined that same argument by making a bizarre comparison between the spill and 9/11.
The heart of his speech, however, was no doubt inspired by Rahm Emanual’s famous, or infamous, exhortation to let no good crisis go to waste. As such, Obama thinks the oil spill is a perfect time to revive his job killing, economy destroying cap-and-trade bill, though he dared not call it that…
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The left has one solution for everything: government control. Whatever the problem, simply call for government to takeover and it will magically be solved. That’s their thinking, as demonstrated in this case by Robert Reich:
It’s time for the federal government to put BP under temporary receivership, which gives the government authority to take over BP’s operations in the Gulf of Mexico until the gusher is stopped. This is the only way the public know what’s going on, be confident enough resources are being put to stopping the gusher, ensure BP’s strategy is correct, know the government has enough clout to force BP to use a different one if necessary, and be sure the President is ultimately in charge.
Let’s consider the benefits he sees to government control.
1) It’s the only way the public knows what is going on. Last time I checked, government was a hotbed of secrecy, spin and misinformation. Despite running on a campaign of transparency, Obama has run one of the most opaque administration’s in history. The idea that government control will help the public know better what is going on is laughable.
2) The public will be confident enough resources are being put to stopping the leak. Perhaps Robert Reich missed the memo, but confidence in government is at historic lows, and for good reason. While it’s technically true that the government has more resources than BP, there is no indication that BP’s problem up to this point is a lack of resources. Even if it was, they can be made available without a government takeover.
3) Government will ensure BP is using the correct strategy, and force them to change if they are not. What, exactly, gives government the expertise to determine what the “correct” strategy is? How many wells does government operate, again? How many similar leaks have they solved? Let’s put aside the kindergardenish notion that being in government makes one an expert in everything. It doesn’t. This is, after all, the same government that is turning to James Cameron for “expert” advice. The best and brightest oil men aren’t in government, they’re in the oil industry. Let’s leave the clean-up to the professionals, and not a bunch of hacks trying to exploit it for political gain.
4) We can be sure the President is ultimately in charge. Again, what is the thinking here? What the hell does Barack Obama know about stopping oil leaks? He’s a two-bit Chicago thug whose career consists of nothing more than agitating “community organizing” and campaigning. What fool will be comforted by having him in charge of the operation? Robert Reich, that’s who.
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science and work in public policy, but please don't hold that against me.
