By: Jeffrey Klein, Political Buzz Examiner
Examiner.com

In one of his most blatant acts of audacity, President Barack Obama will petition Congress for even more executive power. He wants the ability to “single-handedly” fast track making efficiency changes to government agencies and departments–under the banner of reducing expenditures and the deficit, according to an Associated Press article today.

A “senior administration official” said the first such “test case” would be the six agencies of the Commerce Department, including the Commerce Department’s core business and trade functions; the Small Business Administration; the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; the Export-Import Bank; the Overseas Private Investment Corporation; and the Trade and Development Agency.

The goal would be to have one agency designed to help businesses thrive.

President Ronald Reagan was the last Commander-in-Chief to have such power, nearly 25 years ago. In this case, Obama will label it “consolidation authority”, through which he could propose agency and department mergers that ‘promise’ to save money and help consumers.

After that, Congress would then have to decide whether to approve any of his specific ideas with an up or down vote within 90 days.

Now, here is where the article moves from reporting–to cheerleading for Obama.

“In an election year and a political atmosphere of tighter spending, Obama’s motivation is about improving a giant bureaucracy — but that’s hardly all of it.

To voters sick of dysfunction, Obama wants to show some action on making Washington work better. Politically, his plan would allow him to do so by putting the onus on Congress and in particular his Republican critics in the House and Senate, to show why they would be against the pursuit of a leaner government.”

Obama also has an imperative to deliver. He made a promise to come up with a smart reorganization of the government in his last State of the Union speech. That was nearly a year ago.”

The administration said the merger would save $3 billion over 10 years by getting rid of duplicative overhead costs, human resources divisions and programs.

The [senior] administration official presented Obama as the CEO of an operation who should have more power to influence how it is designed.

This is simply a smokescreen to camouflage another “power grab” for Barack Obama, regardless of how dutifully the AP captured the propaganda from the “senior administration official.”

If Obama had really wanted to reduce the budget deficits, he would have started by actually creating and passing a budget that would accomplish that goal–but he hasn’t, in over 900 days since taking office.

As to the “dysfunctional Congress,” it is an illusion, concocted in collaboration between President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) of the Democrat-controlled Senate. The Senate, no doubt under Obama’s guidance, has procedurally “frozen” more than 30 House bills that would provide private sector job creation and fiscal soundness. Equally important is the fact that they have refused to even consider serious reform of the entitlement programs that are bankrupting the nation.

President Obama bragging about a $3 billion savings over 10 years from this new gambit is almost an insult, as Democrats are addicted to borrowing and spending (because tax revenue can’t keep up with it), raising the debt-ceiling by an average of $2 trillion per year.

And thanks to his request yesterday, for an additional $1.2 Trillion increase in the debt-ceiling–without any of the agreed to spending cuts from the ‘designed-to-fail’ Super Committee materializing–it is only going to get worse.

Finally, as far as President Obama being “…a CEO of an operation who should have more power to influence how it is designed,”–it is the very lack of his having such sweeping power, for which we should all be eternally grateful, that has prevented his irrevocable destruction of the United States, during his brief, and final, tenure.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Jeffrey Klein