🚀 go-pugleaf

Is the man NUTS?

http://online.wsj.com

REVIEW & OUTLOOKUpdated October 29, 2012, 9:18 p.m. ET.

Secretary of Say What?
Obama now says he wants a cabinet officer for business. Seriously.

The brain trust behind President Obama's re-election campaign has a new 
idea, and what a revelation it is. A week from Election Day, Mr. Obama 
has disclosed to the voters that in a second term he'll create more 
private jobs by creating . . . one more government job.

Specifically, and all of a sudden, Mr. Obama wants a new Cabinet-level 
post that will be known as the Secretary of Business.


Mr. Obama then blamed Republicans for opposing this inspiration that no 
one had ever heard of until he disclosed it to the hosts of MSNBC's 
"Morning Joe." He said his re-election "clears away a lot of the 
ideological underbrush," and that the GOP will then join him to "start 
looking at a whole bunch of issues, as I've said, has historically not 
been that ideological."

Maybe Republicans would have opposed the Secretary of Business if they'd 
learned about it somewhere besides cable news, but who knows? The 
reasons could include turf, but also the fact that the government 
already has an agency with a "focus on expanding the American economy 
and job creation" and that "invests in America's long-term growth and 
competitiveness"

It's called the Department of Commerce, with its very own Secretary, and 
the quotes in the preceding paragraph are how the White House describes 
its mission in its 2013 budget. Mr. Obama wants to expand Commerce 
spending by 5% to some $8 billion annually. Extra credit goes to anyone 
who can name the acting Commerce Secretary. No Googling.

Perhaps nobody knows who Rebecca M. Blank is because the real Secretary 
of Business in Mr. Obama's first term has been Valerie Jarrett, his Hyde 
Park confidante turned White House fixer. Ms. Jarrett knows nothing 
about business or the economy, with the possible exception of the 
political economy of the Chicago wards, which may explain why the 
Administration's idea of helping business has been to dispense subsidies 
and other favors to politically favored donors and their green energy 
firms.