Obama’s Cabinet: No Private Sector Experience Required

The Enterprise Blog has an interesting chart showing the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials from 1900 to 2009:

From the blog post:

When one considers that public sector employment has ranged since the 1950s at between 15% and 19% of the population, the makeup of the current cabinet — over 90% of its prior experience was in the public sector — is remarkable.

It’s surprising, but I suppose not shocking.  Hat tip: Instapundit.

Obamacare Receives Failing Grade from Dean of Harvard Med

Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of Harvard Medical School, writes an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal:

In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care’s dysfunctional delivery system. The system we have now promotes fragmented care and makes it more difficult than it should be to assess outcomes and patient satisfaction. The true costs of health care are disguised, competition based on price and quality are almost impossible, and patients lose their ability to be the ultimate judges of value.

Worse, currently proposed federal legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests such as insurance companies, hospitals, professional organizations and pharmaceutical companies, rather than the patients who should be our primary concern.

In effect, while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system—now with many more participants. This will make an eventual solution even more difficult. Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all.

You know it’s bad when even a Harvard professor is against the President’s plan.

Change we can believe in, eh?

Here’s a doozy from ABC News:

Here’s a stimulus success story: In Arizona’s 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that’s what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.

There’s one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts.

Hope and change!

Chairman Obama?

Apparently, CNN correspondents are now comparing President Obama to one of the biggest mass murderers of the twentieth century.  Personally, I think it’s a bit over the top:

A CNN correspondent said Monday she was detained byChinese security guards in Shanghai for two hours for displaying a T-shirt on camera depicting US President Barack Obama as Mao Zedong.

Emily Chang, a Beijing-based correspondent for the US television network, said in a blog post on CNN.com that she hunted down the shirt after hearing they had been banned amid fears they “may offend the American president.”

The shirt shows Obama, who is making his first visit to China as president, in a Red Army uniform staring into the distance in a pose made famous by the former Chinese leader.

The front of the shirt says “Serve the People” in Chinese, Chang said. “Oba-Mao” is written on the back in English.

Then again, there’s evidence to suggest that the Obama Administration has no problem with such a comparison.  Hmm.  Interesting.  As the great philosopher Lennon once said, “But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.”  2010: You know it’s gonna be alright.

The Fourth American Republic?

Earlier this year, in wake of the passage of the Obama Adminstration’s massive “stimulus” bill, The American ran an article entitled “The Coming of the Fourth American Republic?”  While not a partisan read, the article provides an interesting perspective on the trends of American political history and the challenges our nation currently faces.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Special Interest State that has shaped American life for 70 years is dying. What comes next is uncertain, but there are grounds for optimism.

The United States has been called the oldest nation in the world, in the sense that it has operated the longest without a major upheaval in its basic institutional structure.

From one perspective, this characterization is fair. The nation still rests on the Constitution of 1787, and no other government can trace its current charter back so far. Since then, France has had a monarchy, two empires, and five republics. England fudges by never writing down its constitutional arrangements, but the polity of Gordon I is remote from that of George III. China’s political convolutions defy summary.

Shift the angle of vision and the continuity is less clear, because we have had two upheavals so sweeping that the institutional arrangements under which we now operate can fairly be classified as the Third American Republic. Furthermore, this Third Republic is teetering (these things seem to run in cycles of about 70 years) and is on the edge of giving way to a revised Fourth Republic with arrangements as yet murky to our present-bound perceptions.

Definitely worth a read.