Book outlines Obama’s radical agenda

• Reprints

Eaton

Updated: January 23, 2012 4:11AM

Recently I was asked to review a new book that accuses the Obama administration of bypassing Congress to push a radical leftist agenda through federal agencies and bureaucratic regulations. I didn’t look forward to reading “Democracy Denied,” although I personally know the author, Phil Kerpen.

Phil condensed a complicated subject and simplified Obama’s list of dramatic policy changes so regular Jacks and Jills like me could understand. In the process, he inadvertently reminded me that Illinois voters encouraged and enabled Barack Obama and his cohorts to get where they are today.

We are complicit with the growing number of attacks on the Constitution and the imbalance of government branches. That’s not a pleasant thing to remember.

I waited until this past weekend to pick up the book that sat on my desk for almost two weeks. I began skimming the chapter headings. They confirmed my dread. One after one, Kerpen listed and then explained how, unless stopped by Americans, Barack Obama would accomplish his goal — a complete transformation of America as we know it.

One of the key vehicles of Obama’s plan will be through environmental regulations based on the panic that radical environmentalists have instilled about global warming. Rules that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has already set into place will bankrupt Illinois coal plants with new pollution-control requirements.

The EPA’s proposed ozone rules would knock 5.4 percent off the nation’s gross domestic product by 2020, destroying about 7.3 million jobs and causing coal-produced electricity costs to rise sharply — and it was all done without Congress’ authorization, according to Kerpen.

And if after that you’re still able to afford power for your computer, you haven’t escaped. The Federal Communications Commission is pushing Internet neutrality, an effort that will take away broadband management from Internet providers.

“Network neutrality … would lead to much less broadband investment by private companies and could potentially force government subsidization, control and outright nationalization of the Internet,” Kerpen writes.

Who’s for that kind of freedom-suffocating change?

Then there are labor union demands that secret ballots for union certification end. Union representatives would organize card-check campaigns and prohibit voter privacy protections for workers. Kerpen explains the unions’ urgency to pass this policy: They need more members to reverse their decline and keep up their level of political contributions.

“They need to somehow force more workers to pay union dues that they can then feed back into Democratic campaign coffers,” he writes.

Because the card-check legislation died in Congress, Obama is pushing the effort through the National Labor Relations Board in another attempt to bypass the peoples’ representatives.

And all those are just pesky notions when you compare them to Obama’s health care takeover, pushed through despite the majority of Americans’ opposition. The bill that was passed into law was a jumbled mess of a draft bill that’s now being arbitrarily interpreted by unelected bureaucrats, making a bad bill worse.

Obamacare set into place tax hikes and gives control of private health care decisions to politicians and bureaucrats. This dramatic change is taking place through the Medicare system, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services.

“How could the president successfully install such an extreme advocate of rationing and government control of health care? By cheating the process,” Kerpen writes of Obama’s nominee, Dr. Donald Berwick, the head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and a devoted fan of the European health care system.

Other chapters in “Democracy Denied” delve into the major changes in banking regulations, property rights infringements, offshore drilling obstacles and the government bailouts that launched the Tea Party.

Altogether, Kerpen outlines the seriousness of the situation and why Americans need to pay close attention and get actively involved in the political process. Lafayette College economists found that the 2008 cost of federal regulations was $1.75 trillion. The compliance costs that year for small businesses topped $10,500 per employee per year. The Federal Register, where federal regulations are documented, now stands at 81,405 pages with another 4,225 rules in the pipeline.

There’s no end in sight to this attack on freedom. At the earliest, it would be January 2013 if Obama is defeated. But that month should not be seen as a cure-all, Kerpen writes, because it would be foolish to believe a new president will quickly reverse the trend.

“We, as citizens and voters, must commit to holding Congress accountable not just for the legislation they pass but for the regulation they fail to stop,” he writes.

That’s also true for county and state legislators. Over the decades, we’ve learned to believe that there are professional lawmakers, and we should leave politics to them.

That’s what crooked and power-obsessed politicians want us to do — focus on sports, family, housework and our jobs. Leave the policy-making to them.

Let’s hope that time has ended and that regular folks will stay involved. Not only is “Democracy Denied” an eye-opener, it’s a soul searcher.

Fran Eaton is a Southland resident who co-founded and edits the popular conservative political blog,
illinoisreview.com