President Needs More Diversity, Fewer Czars

J.D. Foster / June 11, 2009

President Obama has appointed yet another czar. This time it’s a pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, to monitor the compensation paid to seven companies currently under the opiate influence of federal bailout money. We’re long past czar fatigue.

The political usefulness of a czar is that it allows the President to underscore the importance of an issue. The czar does not acquire any powers not already resident in the office of the Executive, but does have more than the usual influence accorded a federal bureaucrat by virtue of his presumed access to the President. Thus, appointing a czar is a political and management device, nothing else. (more…)