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THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, May 6, 2010

GUEST EDITORIAL

THE DEMOCRATS KEEP DIGGING THE HOLE

How Congress and the President Are Losing the American People

Last spring, President Obama

by Kevin Shafer

Contributing Writer

announced that he would begin a major push to reform and overhaul the nation’s health care system. At the beginning of the process, sup- port for such a reform was very high, with Obama at the time a still very popular president in the middle of his honeymoon period with the people. But as more details began to emerge about the bills that were moving through the Democratically- held Congress that were largely sup-

ported by Obama, public support for the plan began to drop. What most voters began to understand is that this was a bill that would raise health insurance premiums rather than lower them, raise taxes on small businesses and middle class families, would worsen the quality of health care while not lowering its cost, and would add to the already spiraling bud- get deficit. The President kept fighting, making more and more

speeches. Most would not deny that Obama is one of the more gifted speakers we’ve had in the Oval Office in a long time. If anyone could convince people that this health care plan was the right thing for the country, it was Obama. So, he made an almost unprecedented address before a joint session of Congress in Septem- ber to persuade Congress and the American People of the merits of passing the health reform bill. But the speech did not significantly move the poll numbers to- ward support for the plan. Obama and the Democrat leadership in Congress kept digging and scratching to get something passed, but their own members were divided against themselves. Many Democrats whose votes are needed to pass the legislation through the House represent districts that were decidedly against the plan. And they are up for re-election this coming November and realize that a “yes” vote on Obama Care could cost them their re-election. Many of these Congressmen and women in the Democratic Party, not the minority Republican Party, began to play a big role in trying to stop Obama Care. Obama is not up for re-election until 2012 and Nancy Pelosi is in a very safe Democratic district in San Francisco. So, it is ridiculous for both of them

See SHAFER on 21

by Michelle Malkin

Syndicated Columnist

BARACK OBAMA, AMERICA’S SELECTIVE SALARY POLICEMAN

President Obama spoke the most reveal- ing and clarifying 10 words of his control- freak administration this week: “I think at some point you have made enough money.” Peddling financial regu- latory reform at a rally in Quincy, Ill., Obama then ad-libbed peculiar

definitions of what he called the “Ameri- can way” and the profit motive: “(Y)ou can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfill- ing the core responsibilities of the finan- cial system to help grow our economy.” Fundamental lesson of Capitalism 101: Governments and bureaucrats don’t make what people want and need. They only get in the way. It is individuals, coop- erating peacefully and voluntarily, work- ing together without mandate or central design, who produce the world’s goods and services. They make what people desire and demand for themselves, not what Obama and his imperial overlords ordain that the masses should have. As usual, Obama’s populist demagoguery is telling in its omissions and selectivity. While he lectures on the morality of sal- ary caps for everyone else, his own cabi- net is filled with fabulously wealthy CEOs and statist creatures who have parlayed government employment (a “good” ser- vice) into private gain as lobbyists, con- sultants and advisers (“core responsi- bilities of the financial system”) and then back again to public stints. Revolving doors have always grown the Beltway economy. To wit: Austan Goolsbee, head of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, is the 15th wealthiest member of the Obama administration, with as- sets valued at between $1,146,000 to $2,715,000. He also pulled in a Univer- sity of Chicago salary of $465,000 and additional wages and honoraria worth $93,000, according to the Washingto- nian magazine. What “good” did he

provide? The government research fel- low and Obama campaign adviser was a champion of extending credit to the un-creditworthy. In a 2007 op-ed for The New York Times, he derided those who called subprime mortgages “irrespon- sible.” He preferred to describe them as “innovations in the mortgage market” to expand the pool of homebuyers. Now this wrong-headed academic who espoused government policies that fed the housing feeding frenzy is in charge of fixing the loose-credit mess he advocated. This is the “American way”? After 16 years in Congress, four years in the Clinton ad- ministration as budget director and chief of staff, and a lifetime of schmoozing in the halls of power, Obama’s CIA director, Leon Panetta, cashed in big. He’s sitting on up to $4 million in assets. While he has zero experience in intelligence mat- ters, he has extensive experience in par- laying his past political tours of duty into lucrative speaking gigs, consulting fees and stock options. Welcome to Obama- approved entrepreneurship. By Obama’s definition, first lady Michelle Obama is a model capitalist. Remember: After serv- ing with real estate mogul Valerie Jarrett in Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s ad- ministration, Mrs. Obama took a post at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Jarrett was serving as vice-chair of the medical center’s board of trustees. Mrs. Obama was promoted in 2005 after her husband won his U.S. Senate race with Jarrett’s invaluable aid. As “vice president for community and external affairs” and head of the “business diver- sity program,” her annual compensation nearly tripled from $122,000 in 2004 to $317,000 in 2005. Even after she went on leave in 2007 to help her husband on the presidential campaign trail, the hospital paid Mrs. Obama $62,709 in 2008, prompting one skeptic to ask: “We know this is Chicago, but isn’t $63,000 quite a lot for a no-show job?”Jarrett, of course, is now White House senior adviser to the chief spender of other people’s money. And the first lady is

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