By: Fred Johnson; Columnist

President Obama often declares that he is for smaller government and I was convinced that he didn’t really mean it. But now I am coming around and believe that he really is for smaller government. I think that he believes that having to account for his actions to 535 legislators and government departments is a big bother. Obama has named about 20 czars to run various things. He has an energy czar, a car czar, a health reform czar, a drug czar, a border czar, a regulatory czar, an info-tech czar and a climate change czar to name just a few.

    The neat thing about a czar is that they are appointed by the President, they are not confirmed by the Senate, they are accountable only to the President and they do whatever the President tells them to do. This technique gives the executive branch unprecedented power. Some of the czars admit that they know nothing about the job they are supposed to do.

    The car czar, for example, admits that he knows nothing about running an automobile company. Kenneth Feinberg, the latest Obama administration official to be anointed a “czar," hardly has the kind of power that would impress Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great. Feinberg, the White House's "pay czar," will have real control over compensation of executives at exactly seven companies that have been recipients of government bailout money. This gives him discretion over the top five executives and 20 most highly paid employees in those companies.

    At most, that's 175 people. So if Obama asks you to be a czar, you should jump at the chance. The pay is good and you do not have to know what you are doing.

Fred Johnson is a member of the Morgan County Republican Party.