Yesterday,
the WSJ reported that the Obama administration would like to dictate how financial institutions compensate their employees --- even those banks that have not received a dime in federal bailout money. Of course, the politicians are just trying to protect us from those beastly, greedy bankers who blew up the financial system for their own personal gain. (Oh, brother.) Still, it's a scary indication of this administration's ambition to centrally plan American society.
That's why George Will's column today in the Washington Post is such an important read. Will argues that the Obama administration is "bold," (and he doesn't mean that in a good way), but "it also is careless regarding constitutional values and is acquiring a tincture of lawlessness." He points to Obama's "careless disregard" of contracts between Chrysler and its lenders (Obama basically forced a lousy deal on secured creditors but cut a favorable deal for the UAW, which, in normal times, would stand behind creditors in a bankruptcy line). (See also The Economist's story, An Offer You Can't Refuse.)
Will concludes: "The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency [on the federal gub'ment] involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of "economic planning" and "social justice" that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration's central activity -- the political allocation of wealth and opportunity -- is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption."