Chicago Politics In White House

By Ron Spangler

President Obama's meeting with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) director is nothing more than Chicago style politics running wild in the White House. It has been and always will be a normal political tactic to extort or pressure anyone that disagrees with a Illinois public official or Chicago public official if that person or agency gets in the politician's way.

In the recent past no President has called the Director of CBO into the White House, basically calling on the carpet, simply because the President did not like or was upset with a report coming from the CBO.

We will never know what was said in this meeting or how much pressure the CBO director will undergo to change the damning numbers that have been released concerning the House bill for Health Care Reform.

What we must watch for is a sudden change in the numbers benefiting the House Bill. With pressure from a Democrat run House, Senate and White House I would expect there will be another look at the numbers by the CBO and another report will be submitted that "clarifies and better reflects a more accurate picture of the actual numbers for the House Bill."

Of course this will be nothing more than double talk to hide the fact that the Director does not want to loose his job. How could this happen you ask? Simple "the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate jointly appoint the CBO Director, after considering recommendations from the two budget committees. The term of office is four years, with no limit on the number of terms a Director may serve. Either House of Congress, however, may remove the Director by resolution."


The pressure on the Director is self evident by the statement in his blog,

"I presented CBO’s assessment of the challenges of reducing federal health outlays and improving the long-term budget outlook while simultaneously expanding health insurance coverage–just as we had explained these challenges in a letter to Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg last month. I also described CBO’s view of the effects of the health legislation we have seen so far, as I did last Thursday in a hearing at the Senate Budget Committee and a mark-up at the House Ways and Means Committee. In addition, I discussed various policy options that could produce budgetary savings in the long run, drawing on CBO’s Budget Options for Health Care released in December, our letter to Senators Conrad and Gregg last month, and my comments last Thursday. Other participants in the meeting expressed their own views on these various topics."

Question, What were the views of other participants?

So much for the promised Obama transparency. Associated Press :

"And just over two months before the 2008 election, Obama promised before an audience in Chester, Va., to hash out a health care overhaul in public."

"We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies,"

As reported by FoxNews



With President Obama's secret government (32 Czars) in mind, one has to wonder how far will this President go to turn this country into his own idea of a Socialist America and when will Americans say Enough?

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