Just What Is Needed A New Czar

Today we learn that President has proposed a new czar as part of his new "jobs" bill.  You can read about the details in the article that follows by Lurita Doan. However, the point that drives me crazy is: does he not understand that continuing to spend dollars on projects did not work during the Great Depression and to think it will now is pure lunacy.


A study of economic history shows that the economy in the 30's did not recover until the start of WWII and the massive military buildup that the war required. That was the last time debt to GDP reached the levels we are currently experiencing. The major difference between the Great Depression and what is being called the Great Recession is that in the 1930's we lent other countries money and now we owe trillions to the world.  This debt is a noose around our neck and if we don't do something about it, it will kill us.


No czar or tinkering around the edges job bill will solve our problem. We must attack the debt. That can be done in  two ways. First, drastically reduce spending. Cut unnecessary but "nice"programs.  Grants for studying the mating habits of the owl or an education program for Chinese prostitutes would be a good start or funding green energy programs which go bust and leave the taxpayers holding the bag (Oh, I forgot, that was a political payback!) would be another.  We need to cut down spending to a point that only those things necessary would be funded.  


The second way is to increase income, not by raising taxes, but by encouraging businesses to hire by reducing their tax burden and by creating some certainty in what future tax rates will be. The President's bill gives a $4000 credit to a business which will hire someone or increase their salary.  Would you hire someone for $30,000 if you got a $4000 one-time credit? Most would not. The math does not work. The outflow is not only the $30,000 salary but the benefits, the FICA (social security and Medicare) match and the other costs associated with an employee.  The only people who will use this credit will be companies who need to hire someone.


Recently, I spoke to a business owner who told me that in one of his locations they need another person based on their sales. He made the decision to hold off since he did not know what the economy and his taxes would be.  I am sure he is not the only one making a similar decision.


Businesses today are looking for some certainty in what their future tax burden will be. At this point in time, they have no idea.Complicating the issue is that many small businesses are Sub S corporations where the income is included in owner's tax bill. Business owners must be told what their rates will be.  Let's institute a law that says "these are your rates for the next ten years.". 


Additionally, we need to lower the rates for foreign earned income. Trillions of profits of US companies is being held off shore due to the high corporate tax structure we have here.  Lower the rate and those funds will flow here. 


Unless we drastically reduce spending and give business owners some certainty in their income rates, we will never get out of this mess until our creditors force us to like is what is occurring in Greece as we speak. Do we really want someone dictating to us how we must reform our tax and benefit structure or do we handle it ourselves. My choice would be the latter. How about you?

Lurita Doan  

Obama Proposes New Czar

9/19/2011 | 

 

As the Obama agenda proves increasingly impotent, Americans have witnessed Obama's czars crash and burn or run for cover over the past thirty months.  From Van Jones toKevin Jennings  to Nancy-Ann DeParle to Todd Stern toRon Bloom, Obama's style of management--bypassing the senate-confirmed agency heads--has failed to yield the results promised to the American people.  You would think Obama would give up on the failed idea of using a curious collection of White House czars to manage complex economic and regulatory issues. No way.

Instead, in the American Jobs Act, Obama is proposing a new group of czars as a part of his "jobs" act-- the American Infrastructure Financing Authority (AIFA) czars.  President Obama’s newest czars will be given the authority to manage over a trillion dollars of federal funding for roads, bridges, buildings, waterways, dams and other infrastructure. 

Here we go again.  No doubt, Obama hopes that few legislators or American citizens will read the deadly details buried within the 199 pages of his proposed American Jobs Act that will establish this latest czar-ship, nor understand just how expensive AIFA is going to be.  

As with Obama’s other czars, the AIFA czar comes with infrastructure requirements of his own: staff, office space and technology needed to perform the job. Managing what is in reality a trillion dollar budget is going to require a huge new staff that will, essentially represent an entire new federal agency.  Of course, nowhere does President Obama tell us why a new czar is required to manage infrastructure projects.  More importantly, Obama does not explain why the vast federal bureaucracy now responsible for these activities must be bypassed and a new, redundant agency is built.   

Make no mistake: the AIFA Czar position is redundant.  All of the infrastructure projects and tasks identified to be performed by Obama’s new Czar are already the responsibilities of the Senate-confirmed heads of Department of Transportation, the U.S. General Services Administration and the Department of Energy.

Some of these tasks are:

• "oversee entering into and carry out contracts, leases, cooperative agreements or any other transactions as are necessary"
• to approve the acquisition, lease, pledge, exchange and disposal of real personal property
• to review all financial assistance packages to all eligible infrastructure projects"  which includes “any non-Federal transportation, water, or energy infrastructure project, or an aggregation of such infrastructure projects, as provided in this Act.
• the construction, alteration, or repair, including the facilitation of intermodal transit, of the following subsectors:

·         Highways or roads.

·         Bridges.

·         Mass transit.

·         Inland waterways.

·         Commercial ports.

·         Airports.

·         Air traffic control systems.

·         Passenger rail, including high-speed rail.

·         Freight rail systems.

·         Waterwaste treatment facilities.

·         Storm water management systems.

·         Dams.

·         Solid waste disposal facilities.

·         Drinking water treatment facilities.

·         Levees.

·         Open space management systems.

·         Pollution reduced energy generation.

·         Transmission and distribution.

·         Storage.

·         Energy efficiency enhancements for buildings, including public and commercial buildings.

What does Obama's decision to create a new agency entity with redundant responsibilities say about his confidence in his own Senate-confirmed appointees that currently lead DoT, DoI,DoE and GSA?  And just why is the President proposing to transfer all of the power and contractual authority held by the Secretaries of DoT, DoI, DoE, and the Administrator of GSA to a new White House Czar?

If the President is voting no-confidence in his Senate confirmed appointees, then they should go.  But the nation should not have to spend precious taxpayer dollars on yet another, flaky, Obama Administration scheme to create a new White House Czar that is simultaneously able avoid traditional  accountability to the American taxpayer, while at the same time seriously politicizing decisions under White House control at a scale never seen before.

We've seen how the president's czars respond to oversight from Congress. When Congress calls with questions and concerns, the White House staffer often hides behind the protection of Executive Privilege. And, the agency head, confirmed by the Senate, is held responsible. Agency heads and Cabinet officials must venture to the Hill and be accountable to Congress. Yet, the actual policy for that program has often been managed by one of the ubiquitous White House czars.

Obama has created yet another accountability challenge. In addition to their ability to hold positions on other Boards of both for-profit and non-profit corporations, AIFA not only has a Czar but also a 7-member Board of Directors, all with decision-making ability.  Often, when decision-making responsibility is divided among so many, accountability is reduced and the president can hide behind the skirts of a handpicked group of loyalists.  AIFA would essentially be a vastly more powerful NLRB complete with all of the known problems and dangers of a grasping group of unaccountable political cronies. 

When problems arise, a finger-pointing frenzy often ensues and the American taxpayer is left holding the bag.   Of course, you have to admire Obama’s scheme,  as noted in section 346 (on page 116), that offers token reports and evaluation of the success/failure of the Czar and Committee’s spending decision some  four years after implementation.  In this way, the final report card will only be issued long after all Obama devotees are out of office.

And what about the dedicated, trained, career employees at DoT, DoI, DoE and GSA who have been performing the tasks of contracting, construction proposal and prospectus review and development, government legal review of contracts and leases and repairs and maintenance? 

These career professionals possess some of the best technical minds in their respective areas of expertise.  The current system is mostly transparent.  And, it is only when the White House applies political pressure that these things go badly wrong (Solyndra anyone?).

Instead of respecting and utilizing the expertise of these career professionals, Obama has proposed a system wherein they become pawns to political posturing and every infrastructure decision has the potential to become politicized.

Just at a time when our nation should be talking about cutting costs, Obama has put in motion the wheel of a phantasmagorically, bloated, spending project, that increases, phenomenally, the size of government,  duplicates existing governmental functions, escapes honest accountability, all while subordinating all contracting, development, and infrastructure programs to a new White House Czar.  

Lurita Doan

Lurita Alexis Doan is an African American conservative commentator who writes about issues affecting the federal government