The Big Power Grab

The DC power grab is really something to behold. At least if one happens to be a curious observer with no stake in the fate of the United States. For anyone else it should cause a good deal of concern.

Today the Senate passed legislation putting the tobacco industry under the regulation of the FDA. (Will the ATF have to take out the T?) People think “Well, smoking is bad for people so the government should do something.” But here’s the problem - what they’re doing is unconstitutional. In addition, it will be a boon for trial lawyers. Just what we need in the middle of a recession.

Tobacco’s just the tip of the iceberg. They also want to regulate executive compensation of US companies.

The Obama administration struck a delicate balance on executive pay Thursday, blaming flawed compensation packages for encouraging disastrous risk-taking but insisting it doesn’t want to dictate how corporations reward their top people.

Gene Sperling, a top counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, conceded to a congressional committee that imposing compensation caps on companies could lead to a flight of talent.

“I can say with certainty that nobody in the Obama administration is proposing such a thing,” he said.

Yet, at the same time, he and officials with the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission laid out a case for how payment structures rewarded short-term gains at the expense of long-term performance and contributed to the nation’s financial crisis.

The administration plans to seek legislation that would try to rein in compensation at publicly traded companies through nonbinding shareholder votes and by decreasing management influence on pay decisions.

But some Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee said Thursday the administration’s efforts to hector the private sector into reforming executive pay might not go far enough.

“I do differ with the administration in that hope springs eternal and their position seems to be that if we strengthen the compensation committees we will do better,” said the committee chairman, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said that shareholders’ votes on pay should be made binding on boards of directors.

Still, Frank made it clear he did not wish to impose pay caps.

Oh, Barney Frank again.

If there’s no plan to impose pay caps what’s the need for a pay czar? Whose pay won’t they regulate, for the greater good? Oh yeah, I forgot – union bosses. How many billions of taxpayer dollars have we sunk into the companies they’ve destroyed? But there’s no way in hell any democrat will go near the compensation of union bosses.

Today the Nanny in Chief was back out on the campaign trail trying to sell his health care power grab to the American sheeple people.

“There are some folks who say ‘socialized medicine.’ You hear that all the time: ‘socialized medicine,’” Obama said. “Well, socialized medicine would mean that the government would basically run all of health care. … Nobody’s talking about doing that, all right? So, when you hear people saying ‘socialized medicine,’ understand: I don’t know anybody in Washington who is proposing that – certainly not me.

“Don’t let people scare you,” he added. “If you like what you’ve got, we’re not going to make you change.”

He said he didn’t want to run banks. He said he didn’t want to run auto companies. How’s that working out? Why on earth should anyone believe he doesn’t want to run our health care? Why on earth would anyone believe his plan won’t destroy private health insurance providers? Especially when he lied right before making those statements?

“To those who criticize our efforts, I ask them, ‘What’s the alternative?’” Obama said. ” ‘What else do we say to all those families who spend more on health care than on housing or on food? What do we tell those businesses that are choosing between closing their doors and letting their workers go?’ “

What’s the alternative? The republicans released a health care plan of their own. And here’s another plan. Heck, even some democrats don’t want a public option. There are plenty of proposals out there that don’t involve the public option. He just doesn’t want to listen because he won, and those plans don’t give him enough power.

There’s a reason we have a constitution. It’s supposed to protect us from these power-hungry statists. It’s supposed to protect us from the tyranny of the majority. But if our elected officials ignore the document it isn’t worth the paper it was written on.