What Was Missing from the SOTU Address

Wednesday nights, I usually watch “Ghost Hunters” on the SyFy Channel. Yes, I am one of those geeks. But this week, I set the DVR so that I could watch President Obama give the annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress and the American people.

I might as well have watched a bunch of people using high-tech gadgetry to try to make contact with the other side, because I certainly didn’t learn anything new in this world.

Anyone who has paid even scant attention to Obama over the past year or two has heard it all before. We heard about the need to act “boldly” and “aggressively” in a crisis, the need to pass climate change legislation, the need to pass the health care boondoggle, the requisite bashing of banks and Wall Street, and, lest we forget, blaming Bush for everything except ABC’s cancellation of the show “Ugly Betty.”

In the private sector, constant passing of the buck gets you fired. In government, it earns you points with your base.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, Diane Sawyer, Frank Luntz, Joe Biden
Posted Jan 28th 2010 at 1:03 pm in Congress, News, Obama | 66402121 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/pmeister/2010/01/28/what-was-missing-from-the-sotu-address/What+Was+Missing+from+the+SOTU+Address2010-01-28+21%3A03%3A11Pam+Meister

ObamAmerica: Reign of the Czars

President Obama’s decision to appoint so many czars is  clearly troubling members of Congress, who have taken the  unusual step of holding hearings on the issue.  The decision of the two Senate committees is remarkable because a President’s management style is rarely questioned by the Senate or House during the first year of his term, especially when they are all members of the same political party.   But, Obama’s decision to appoint almost 40 policy czars, and then give them broad powers and budgetary responsibilities, has created a more serious constitutional issue.  

The Senate is primarily concerned that President Obama may be end-running the Constitution, along with the growing fear, shared by many citizens, that the power and the extraordinary amount of funding that is controlled by the Czars may be undermining the authorities of the senate-confirmed agency heads on whom the Senate has placed its imprimatur and its trust. 

Czars currently influence or directly control over a trillion dollars of government spending, which is more than the spending of the entire federal government during the Reagan Administration.  And, yet, few of the Obama  czars were ever vetted through the traditional review process where potential conflicts of interest are revealed.  Nor are Obama’s czars accountable to the Senate to justify policy or spending decisions. 

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Tags: Barack Obama, Carol Browner, czar, Ken Feinberg, Obama administration
Posted Oct 28th 2009 at 2:15 pm in Congress, Obama, Politics | 2220260 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/ldoan/2009/10/28/obamamerica-reign-of-the-czars/ObamAmerica%3A+Reign+of+the+Czars2009-10-28+21%3A15%3A41Lurita+Doan

The Public Option Deception

The public option has been a political football since early summer. The President has said more than once that he prefers it but will not demand it. This was considered capitulation by many on the left who see the public option as necessary for “real” reform. Meanwhile, belying the President’s public statements, there are reports that the President’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel has been quietly but firmly twisting arms in the back rooms to insure the public option is included in the final bill. Even now, pressure is mounting on Harry Reid to include the public option in the health reform bill he brings to the Senate floor.

In response to the tumult over what appears to be a small feature of the effort, more than one critic has wondered aloud why Democrats don’t just give up on the public option – which is opposed by every Republican – in order to reach a more bipartisan outcome. What exactly is so important about the public option anyway? And why do Democrats in particular seem so wedded to the idea?

There is a simple answer to these questions, but it’s an answer you’ve likely not heard from any institution in the mainstream media. The truth is that the public plan is a carefully devised scheme, a sneaky strategy, to deceive American voters. It’s a political marketing ploy designed to move the nation to a single-payer system – like the one in Canada – over the next decade. The public option is the Trojan horse. On the outside it’s all about “choice and competition”, but once it has been dragged within the walls of American medicine it’s true nature will become evident. By that time, it’ll be too late.

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Tags: ACORN, American Medical Association, Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Clark Hoyt
Posted Oct 21st 2009 at 5:15 am in ACORN, Featured Story, Healthcare, Politics | 18546101 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/richmondsexton/2009/10/21/the-public-option-deception-with-exclusive-new-audio/The+Public+Option+Deception2009-10-21+12%3A15%3A58Morgen+Richmond+and+John+Sexton