Giving Failed Bureaucrats Even More Power is Not a Good Idea
This can’t possibly lead to anything good.
The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.
The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.
Giving the Treasury secretary authority over a broader range of companies would mark a significant shift from the existing model of financial regulation, which relies on independent agencies that are shielded from the political process. The Treasury secretary, a member of the president’s Cabinet, would exercise the new powers in consultation with the White House, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, according to the document.
Let’s set aside the questionable Constitutionality of the request or that fact that it is profoundly un-American. Sister Toldjah, Fausta, John Hawkins, and Dan Collins will give you chapter and verse on all of that, including that the President really does think there a government bureaucrat should set a ceiling of arbitrary height to intentionally limit what you can accomplish.
I just want to ask you a simple question: What recent success has the government had that gives us any reason at all to believe it is competent to “unravel” a complicated business situation?
Look at what this administration and the last have done to our economy since September. I can’t find one thing our government has done, under either a Republican or Democratic President that merits giving it more power. In fact, just the opposite is true. We should be putting up giant blast doors to separate our government from our private sector as much as possible to prevent it from doing again what it’s done in the past few months.
This isn’t a particularly conservative notion, though. It’s an American one. We should be handling our affairs, not the government. No bureaucrat, elected or not, knows what’s in our own best interests. When they say they do, they’re lying and supremely arrogant. We should never reward dishonesty or arrogance with more power.
(via memeorandum)
Other Posts of Interest:
- What Does Our Government Want to Buy Next, Gambling Debts? (UPDATE: A Glimpse of Our New SecTreas?)
- Four Years of No Entrepreneurship?
- Thank You, Republicans, for Our New Treasury Secretary, Fraudy McTaxCheat
Category: The Economy and Your Money, The Rise of the Nanny State
