Tag: barack obama

Categories
U.S. Constitution

Hold Your Applause

Here’s a quiz. “[A] populist pep rally that’s constantly interrupted by applause.” This statement refers to

A. The shameful quadrennial nominating conventions of the Democratic and Republican Parties.
B. The constitutionally mandated State of the Union Address.
C. The Oscars.

It could be any of the three. There’s too much clapping in our society, not enough listening. This goes for your local PTA meeting as well as the annual presentation of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

But Gene Healy of the Cato Institute was talking about the State of the Union speeches. “In our constitutional system,” he recently explained in a Cato Weekly Video, “Congress is supposed to be the lead dog and the dominant branch. And they really shouldn’t be jumping up out of their seats to clap at every outsized promise like they’re members of the Supreme Soviet cheering a new grain quota.”

Healy says that next year, when Obama must offer up the annual State of the Union, he should begin the speech by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, please hold your applause till the end.”

I say, go further. Do like Thomas Jefferson did: Write up the report and send it to Congress. A public speech is not required.

And if Barack Obama cannot stand giving up the chance to use his golden voice and silver tongue, then deliver the speech as a podcast, for Congress to watch on their iPods.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

Transparent Obama

You may have heard about Barack Obama’s desire for greater transparency in government. Policy will now favor ready revelation, he has said. No more unnecessary dark secrets about governmental doings.

As a U.S. senator, Obama made a few plausible gestures in support of greater openness about the legislative process. So I have been guardedly optimistic about his commitment to transparency as our new president.

President Obama has promised to post legislation online for public viewing before he signs it. However, the very first bill he signed, which expands the right to sue over alleged pay discrimination, was not posted online.

Recovery.gov page, early February
Recovery.gov page, early February

An administration spokesman alluded to mysterious difficulties preventing this. Apparently, one is not allowed to be transparent about the obstacles to transparency. Okay, so maybe it just slipped through the cracks.

But what more urgent test can there be of the president’s commitment to transparency than the trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending package Obama is touting? Why not make it easy for all Americans to scan the dirty details before it’s too late to scream at congressmen to try to stop it?

The question answers itself, but let’s visit the recovery.gov Web page.

There we are told: “Check back after the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to see how and where your tax dollars are spent.”

You know, after it’s too late.

The only thing transparent here is this maneuver.

This Is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability Common Sense free trade & free markets too much government

New Prez Pleads for Common Sense

I like a president who pleads for common sense.

Here’s the story, headlined in the New York Times: “Obama Calls for ’Common Sense’ on Executive Pay.”

The president announced a salary cap for top executives working for companies garnering the greatest gobs of booty under the most recent federal bailout. The cap? Half a million bucks.

President Obama allayed a few qualms, right away. He said that “This is America, we don’t disparage wealth. . . .” And he said, “we certainly believe that success should be rewarded.”

But he does talk about the “height of irresponsibility” in Bush administration bailouts, with execs taking huge bonuses after running their companies into the ground. Who wasn’t sickened by this? Obama sees it as common sense to make sure we don’t reward massive failure with the usual rewards of success.

Still, America is also about respecting contracts. Those corporations had negotiated very explicit contracts with their execs regarding the big bucks. And — surprise, surprise — Congress wrote up the law on the gargantuan bailouts without requiring those contracts be renegotiated.

And consider: Do we really want our politicians setting non-government salaries?

This is all a side issue, though. Take the bailouts themselves. Where’s the common sense there? They do reward failure. They will not help the economy. If our leaders had acted according to common sense, the whole salary issue wouldn’t even have come up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

Change So Far

President Barack Obama promised change . . . including in the way Congress did things. As a senator, he sponsored a transparency bill that — if Congress could only have stuck with after passing — would have publicized all proposed pork.

And there’s the rub. Congress is constitutionally in charge of change, really. You might say “change” is Congress’s job: New things for government are supposed to come from Congress in the form of legislation. Not from the president.

So how has Congress helped? Well, as I’ve reported before, the new Congress has indicated pretty clearly what kind of change it wants: A stronger stranglehold on power and a narrow purview of options to be considered.

None of this represent the kind of change Americans want . . . or Obama promised.

The most interesting procedural proposals come, these days, from the minority Republicans.

Opposing the developing Democrat bailout package (that spends more trillions we don’t have), House Minority Leader John Boehner asked that no so such bill be “brought to the floor of the House unless there have been public hearings in the appropriate committees, the entire text has been available online for the American people to review for at least one week, and it includes no special-interest earmarks.”

Veteran Washington reporter Cokie Roberts called Boehner’s proposal “delightful.”

Delightful it is, and in Obama’s spirit, too, but it’s up to Congress to deliver.

So far, no good.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption

Candidate No. 5

Last year I said the following, on this very program:

What is it with bribery and Illinois governors? Former Governor George Ryan was convicted of taking bribes. Now Governor Blagojevich is making bribes . . . to the entire legislature.

I was concerned with Blagojevich’s readiness to change his mind — flip flop — depending on getting a return. Blagojevich proved unrepentant. He knows how politics usually works.

Apparently logrolling and flip-flopping didn’t go far enough down the bribery road. So now, his task as Illinois state governor to appoint a successor to Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate has been just as straightforward as his other politic deals.

There’s talk of a million dollars being put “on the table” by people close to a “Candidate No. 5.” By the time this appears, you will probably know more about this than I do now, as I type these words. But any uncertainties I may have about this whole affair were not firmed up by the protests from Jesse Jackson, Jr., now confirmed as that notorious No. 5.

Jackson defended his honor, his staff’s honor, in no uncertain terms. “It’s impossible,” he says, that someone on his staff — or even on his behalf — has offered anything improper.

Until he said “impossible,” I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But, folks, we’ve learned from Governor Blagojevich himself how politics works. Bribery is the art of the possible.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies

Voter Intimidation You Can Believe In

Big labor is tired of the private balloting that workers currently enjoy when deciding whether to unionize. The unions want to get rid of such balloting. By law. There’s a bill floating around in Congress that would do this.

Is a President Obama going to sign it?

The unionized share of the work force has shrunk in recent decades. Many employees don’t see the benefit of joining a union. Because voting on whether to certify a union is done by private ballot, one can’t claim that they are scared of retaliation from the boss.

So what would unions gain from a law that bans private balloting?

Well, if union organizers know how people are voting, and people voting know that the organizers know how they are voting, there would be much more opportunity to pressure and even intimidate employees into voting the “right” way.

Unions hope this would help turbo-charge recruitment efforts. As columnist Donald Lambro puts it, passage of the bill would make it “easier to unionize workplaces without the bother of the private ballot to protect workers in a free and democratic election.”

This anti-democratic bill has been around for a while. But now the chances of passage have increased dramatically. Candidate Barack Obama, at least when addressing union crowds, often promised he would push to make it happen. Will he do so?

You can bet the unions are watching. So should we.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Obaminableonomics

There’s a new school of economic thought: Obaminableonomics.

Come to think of it, though, maybe there’s nothing so very new about this Obaminable economic school — after all, it just combines typical big-government redistribution with a few nominal nods in the direction of fiscal self-discipline.

You can get a concise idea of the Obaminable approach to economics from a headline that floated into my In Box the other day. I quote: “Obama Promotes Fiscal Restraint, Big Spending.” According to the reporter, the president-elect “wants to project fiscal restraint even as his economic team assembles a massive recovery package that could cost several hundred billion dollars.”

Huh?

Well, President-Elect Barack Obama thinks he erases the contradiction by contrasting his short-term plans with his long-term plans. Short-term, government must spend like there’s no tomorrow, because this is what we allegedly need to see happening if we are to regain confidence in our future. Yes, we absolutely must see an endless parade of babbling bureaucrats going hog-wild with taxpayer dollars on a wide array of ludicrous, unworkable schemes. Absolutely.

After that, though, will come the line-by-line budget review, the ruthless cutting out of bloat.

Well, any alcoholic will tell you that he can stop whenever he likes. Just so, our rulers keep putting off the restraint of fiscal restraint.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies

Would-Be Messiahs Need Not Apply

This is a tough season for me.

I’m not speaking of autumn. I like autumn. A gradual cooling is nice; the swirl of falling leaves, brightly colored, wondrous. It’s good to have a gentle transition to winter’s cold.

It’s the presidential electoral season that’s tough, both the before part and the after part.

As I have argued many times, the best hope for our republic lies in the action of local activists and leaders, not only demanding limited government but also showing how it’s done. If there’s no political market for freedom at the local level, it won’t flourish at the federal level, let me tell you.

And yet politicians and media emphasize the doings and sayings of folks at the top of the heap.

Worse yet, there seems a budding epidemic of president worship.

Oh, Obama is a smart guy, a good orator. He might end up being a great president. But he hasn’t even begun that job.

I’m just not very good at adoring politicians, of putting them on a pedestal, of pretending they’re superhuman. So, let’s cool it. Hero worship is more than nonsense, it’s idolatrous nonsense.

And yet too many politicians encourage the wrong kind of support. And receive it.

We need a version of hope that’s bigger than one man, a version that rests some responsibility on our actions as something other than voters and sycophants.

I am hoping this is possible. Say it with me: Yes, we can.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies

Celebrating Obama

A clear majority of American voters — of all races — voted for Barack Obama. They now celebrate his victory.

Me? Not so much.

Oh, I like Obama’s talk about there not being red states and blue states, urging that we get past partisanship. I just don’t recall him ever bucking his own party.

I like that he talks about reviewing all government programs and ending those that don’t work, expanding those that do. But, after several years in Washington, he’s yet to name the first program he’d scrap. Don’t hold your breath now.

I like his bashing of the corrupt insider games in Washington. And then I see that those around him are insiders who have been running government for decades.

So, I’m still counting on you to save our country. Not Obama.

Yet, the election of a black man to the presidency does seem a fitting time to celebrate just how far we have come, and, moreover, to say thanks to those who risked so much to obtain equal rights and justice.

Let’s hear it for equal rights and justice!

Even in my short 48 years in this great country, I can recall a different day and time. Then, Americans lived in fear over the issue of race; then, black Americans could hardly be said to live in freedom.

We can rejoice in leaving that past far behind — whether we voted for the candidate who to some symbolizes it, or not.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom insider corruption

Beating Up Joe the Plumber?

When Samuel Wurzelbacher hit the news as “Joe the Plumber,” his story played well. Presidential candidate Barack Obama had been going door to door, with cameras, in an elaborate meet-and-greet binge. When he got to Wurzelbacher’s door, he got an earful. And John McCain got one of his few opportunities to really do some damage to the Obama juggernaut.

Now, the election is over, and new causes will be celebrated and reviled. But Joe’s right to speak his mind remains a live issue, one that we should all worry about.

Yes, there’s more to this story than you may have heard.

Here’s the rest of the story: Soon after his newfound notoriety, the real Joe, Mr. Wurzelbacher, found himself under investigation by the local police.

It’s an old, ignoble tradition throughout much of the world: A person speaks up, out come the billy clubs.

Fortunately, the investigation into his private records was nipped in the bud. The records clerk who actually made the inquiry has found herself under investigation. She’s even been charged with “gross misconduct” for allegedly making an improper, politically-based inquiry.

We’ll see if the investigation goes further than just this one clerk. The higher-up who approved the probe, Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, has defended her move. Will her maximum contributions to Mr. Obama’s campaign be judged irrelevant?

We’ll see.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.