Obama’s Attorney General, More Stimulus Spending and Defending Deregulation
Barack Obama’s choice for attorney general comes under scrutiny for his record on civil liberties.
Democrats in Congress plan to seek additional billions in taxpayer money for another economic stimulus and bailout package.
The nation’s economic woes raise expectations that an Obama White House will dramatically change fiscal policy in the U.S.
More headlines: listen to the LibertyWeek podcast.
1. TECHNOLOGY
Barack Obama’s choice for attorney general comes under scrutiny for his record on civil liberties.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Policy Analyst Cord Blomquist on Holder’s problematic positions:
“Law enforcement is important, in fact, it’s one of the primary reasons we have a government in the first place. Unfortunately, Eric Holder favors several policies that would use technology to violate the rights of all citizens, rather than investigating and prosecuting only those who break the law. This is the reason we have written Constitutions.”
2. CONGRESS
Democrats in Congress plan to seek additional billions in taxpayer money for another economic stimulus and bailout package.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on the lack of accountability in bailout spending:
“Those dispensing the ‘Bailout to Nowhere’ proceeds seemingly answer to no one. Today brought the $9 billion Ford auto credit-line appeal, and the $500 billion Pelosi compound-stimulus proposal. I’m not even a conspiracy theorist, but I see this lack of accountability as, if not deliberate, surely strategically unprotested by those with the power to make decisions (to illustrate, Pelosi calls her plan an ‘investment’–it is, from the right hand to the left hand). Note the pattern; no one can be blamed for anything (We tried! We acted ‘boldly’ and kinda like FDR!); but all corners of government and both major political parties can take ‘credit’ when markets finally recover thanks to the toil of individuals.”
3. BUSINESS
The nation’s economic woes raise expectations that an Obama White House will dramatically change fiscal policy in the U.S.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Center for Entrepreneurship Director John Berlau on why Obama is wrong to blame deregulation for our current financial distress:
“…now that he has won the presidency and must, as the cliché goes, shift from campaigning to governing, Obama and his economic team will have to face up to a paradox that most of the media overlooked during the campaign. Namely, the Obama campaign’s twin messages of bashing deregulation and embracing the Clinton years were inherently contradictory. Bill Clinton signed nearly every deregulatory measure that John McCain backed—the same measures that are now being blamed (wrongly) for helping cause the current crisis. What’s more, Clinton administration officials have credited these policies for contributing to the ‘90s economic boom—the very ‘shared prosperity’ that Obama says he wants to go back to.”
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