USA or USSR?

The administration’s recent move to oust GM CEO Rick Wagoner is deeply troubling. I have long resisted the government being in the position to pick winners and losers in a capitalist rather than state-sponsored marketplace.

Yes, critics will quickly assert that GM took taxpayer dollars. Fair point. But using this as a justification to oust the CEO of a private company is very worrisome. Why?

Where in the Constitution does it provide executive authority to permit such an action as President Obama’s? Rather than turning this into an argument about President Bush, please contain yourself and cite a clause in the Constitution, be it under Section II or elsewhere, that permits the execution of such a power by the president to act as he has.

I am troubled we are treading into uncharted and dangerous waters when the president acts without constitutional authority to meddle in the private marketplace. Who will be next? Can the president next decide to replace the CEO of a newspaper that prints unfavorable articles about him or his administration? Where will this newfound power be checked? By Congress? The Supreme Court?

Things are starting to look a lot more like the USSR than the USA, and I don’t like it one bit.