Some Thoughts on Czars

It seems that czars were started by Nixon with a lull for some years then revived by Bush. The best credible estimate of the number of Obama’s czars is around 20, which is more than Bush.

I’m on the fence with this one, it looks as if Bush wasn’t that affective with this approach, mostly because he assigned incompetent people to the positions but if used correctly you can side step a lot of bureaucracy and really get something accomplished. If I understand it correctly, what ever policy issues the czars are overseeing there role is to manage, oversee and report to the President. Any monies that would be directed to these issues would still be done by congress. This could work well seeing how it assigns responsibility for overall progress, no more passing the buck or decisions being bated around by other top level officials, while nothing ever gets accomplished. I do have some concerns though, like many other bestowed, attained or ceased powers there is an increased chance of corruption without proper oversight. So at the end of the day it comes down to whether or not you trust the President’s competence and ethics. I feel Obama for the most part has more than many that have come before, at least I hope, will have to see.

Here are a couple links on czars.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019025.php.

This one shows some of the people bush put in charge. WTF come on George!

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=wish_upon_a_czar