BrianGarst.com

With a deep ignorance of economic and political history, many have praised Obama by comparing him to FDR.  I see the similarities between Obama and FDR as deeply troubling.  It turns out the two presidents have quite a lot in common, though this hardly speaks well of either Obama nor the prospects for our nation’s future.

While President, FDR created a political environment hostile to free enterprise and growth.  The result was a needlessly prolonged period of economic misery.  Arbitrary rule, the natural consequence of making economic decisions through political means, is the enemy of economic growth.  Barack Obama is today creating a similarly hostile environment for free enterprise.

The most recent example is the President’s unlawful attack on Chrysler’s investors.  As payback for the millions of dollars in campaign funds they provided, Obama has seized the company from private investors and handed a majority over to the UAW, despite the fact that they held far fewer bonds than private investors.  For more on this atrocious abuse of governmental power, see here, here and here.

For refusing to go along with the President’s unfair raid on their investments, private investors were singled out for a public thrashing by the President, who took to the bully pulpit to once again bully the private economy into submission.  Obama is creating an environment in which contracts are meaningless and investment is always at risk of being wiped out by politicians advancing special interests.  This is crony capitalism.  It is the kind of disgraceful action taken every day in Latin America, and it will wreak havoc on our economy the same as it does theirs.

Barack Obama Chrysler