Demystifying the Czars

Many people wonder about all of Obama’s Czar’s…what can they do? what power do they have?  what are they held accountable to?  Dictionary.com states that a ‘czar’ is: “an emperor or king; any person exercising great authority or power in a particular field.”

Czars in our current case are a set of special advisors that have the president’s ear on specific issues.  There are currently 33 czars with 4 open positions.  President Bush had 13 czars in his presidency after Congress passed laws that said that President Bush could show classified information to anyone of his choosing.

Czars do not need to answer questionnaires like cabinet or secretary positions, nor do they need to have FBI background checks, Supreme Court confirmations, or Congressional hearings.  It is not really clear what they do or what they get paid for.

Legally speaking, they are technically Presidential advisors.  A president can put advisors on payroll and can essentially have as many as he wants.  If they do things that should be done by other Federal officials that clearly have that responsibility or who’s work is accountable to Congress, it could violate the Constitution and Federal law.  Further, if President Obama has his czars do things in his own name, it would also be a violation because he cannot delegate that power to czars.

For TARP (Trouble Asset Release Program), Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner was given discretion to spend over $700 billion.  One of the czars that had the privilege of whispering into the ear of Geithner was Ron Bloom, the manufacturing czar.  Bloom is a special assistant to the president of United Steelworkers union and a former executive with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.

During the Crystler/GMC bankruptcy, the United Auto Workers got large stakes in the business.  If Bloom was sharing his thoughts to Geithner, that is lawful.  However, if he was bypassing Sec. Geithner to negotiate the deal in favor of the UAW, that would be unlawful.  We will never know.

I propose that congress vote out the bills passed during President Bush’s era.  All people who are giving direction should be held accountable to the people via Congress.  This is not a red vs. blue issue, it’s an American one.