Terrible, economy-destroying policy. Delivered not by Congress - but by unilateral executive branch fiat. Delivered as special favors to political cronies.
That’s been the last eight years in a nutshell. Do we want it for another four? That’s the question Americans need to ask themselves as they head to the polls tomorrow. (Millions of people have already voted - which is itself terrible policy. It’s like having a trial - and allowing half the jury to render a verdict halfway through the case.)
A perfect microcosm of the dictatorial Barack Obama administration is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Run with an iron fist by a President Obama Mini Me - Chairman Tom Wheeler, who, like President Obama, has thrown out the window all attempts at sound policy based on rational analysis and imposed through normal processes. And has instead repeatedly jammed through terrible, crony-pleasing fiats in hyper-partisan fashion.
The FCC is made up of four voting Commissioners and a voting Chairman. The Chairman and two Commissioners are of the President’s Party - two of the opposition Party. So it has been 3-2 Democrat.
And Chairman Wheeler has jammed through more 3-2 partisan votes than the last five commissions combined. And has done so not on minor issues - but on huge, sweeping power grabs.
How very Obamacare of them. And like Obamacare, these FCC power grabs are poised to destroy the sectors at which they’re aimed.
And these huge, sweeping legislative changes nigh always should have been passed by our elected Congress - not these three unelected bureaucrats.
All-Internet-consuming Network Neutrality was a 3-2 vote. In fact, President Obama put his thumb on the allegedly-independent FCC scale prior to its imposition.
And the power grab has done what nothing except the September 11th attacks and the 2008 global economic collapse had previously succeeded in doing - depressed investment in Internet infrastructure. So that’s fairly catastrophic company for a regulation to be keeping.
But the FCC did it anyway. Why? Because Obama Administration cronies like Google, Netflix and Facebook wanted them to do so.
Apparently feeling that ginormous assault on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) was insufficient, the FCC decided to create new data-collection rules that apply only to them. And they did so - on a 3-2 vote. Why did the FCC do this? The rules are much harsher and more stringent than the rules for Obama Administration cronies like Google, Netflix and Facebook - meaning data sales for the cronies became as a result exponentially easier. How’s that for equal protection before the law? (Well, the unilateral fiat?)
The FCC’s assault on the copyright protections of television programming was also a 3-2 vote. Want to depress investment in content creation? Make it exponentially more difficult for the creators to protect their creations. Which is exactly what the partisan FCC did.
Nearly everyone who writes for TVs and movie theaters expressed strident opposition. The FCC did it anyway. Why? Because Obama Administration cronies like Google, Netflix and Facebook wanted them to do so.
And on, and on, and….
This type of behavior - so excruciatingly exemplified by the FCC - has been replicated in agency after agency throughout the Obama Administration. Terrible, economy-destroying policies. Again and again (and again) delivered not by Congress - but by unilateral executive branch fiat. Delivered as special favors to political cronies.
A Hillary Clinton Administration - would be a nigh seamless continuation of these horrendous, crony practices.
Do we really want that?
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