On Monday, staying consistent with his central planning proclivities, President Obama created a new cabinet-level Office of Manufacturing Policy and picked two new czars to guide his manufacturing policy [whatever that may be].

The new office expands on the previous advisory role  of manufacturing czar and replaces former Steelworkers’ union official Ron Bloom, who stepped down in August. However, Mr. Obama’s picks are already drawing fire from the Left.

One of the President’s picks is the newly appointed Commerce Secretary John Bryson, who happens to be the former Chairman and CEO of Edison International, as well as a former director on several public boards, including the Boeing Company (yeah, that one), the Walt Disney Company, the Coda Company and BrightSource Energy [yeah, the same one].

His other pick, National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, is another controversial figure.

According to Bloomberg:

Some of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides, none of whom faced Senate confirmation, earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other Wall Street firms, according to financial disclosure forms.

The advisers include Gene Sperling, who last year took in $887,727 from Goldman Sachs and $158,000 for speeches mostly to financial companies, including the firm run by accused Ponzi scheme mastermind R. Allen Stanford. [Emphasis added.]

As Dan Froomkin writes in the Huffington Post, Obama’s picks “raised some of the same concerns that arose when Obama named General Electric CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt as his top adviser for job-creation efforts.”

In an e-mail to Froomkin, Leo Hinder of the New America Foundation’s Smart Globalization Initiative stated:

“How is this so much different than having Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric head the President’s Jobs Council when GE under Mr. Immelt’s stewardship has offshored many more American jobs than it has created?”

The question is a valid one. After all, Obama’s selections do appear to drawn from the same seemingly never-ending pool of crony capitalists as his other appointments. And, if the crony capitlaists are continuing to run the administration’s failed policies, then it is little wonder why there is angst among the Left.

More disappointingly for America’s job creators, however, is the sheer fact that Mr. Obama continues on the trajectory of appointing czars as central planners. It is, unfortunately, a reminder that the President fails to understand the adage “that government is best which governs least.”

* Note: While it is almost too painful to borrow the ridiculous 99%/1% meme from the #OWS movement, the irony here is just too rich to pass up.
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“Socialism has no place in the hearts of those who would secure the fight for freedom and preserve democracy.” Samuel Gompers, 1918

Cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.com

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