Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra is likening President Barack Obama to a slick TV pitchman in his eleventh-hour media blitz to sell the Affordable Care Act to Americans.
"The president is now the pitchman, just like [actor and former Tennessee senator] Fred Thompson is for reverse mortgages," Hoekstra told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
"[But] Fred's of the private sector and he's getting paid to do it. This is the president of the United States and it's embarrassing.
"He's the pitchman – he and [first lady] Michelle [Obama] are the pitch leaders to get 6 million people to sign up."
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Economist Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland, added:
"[Obama] really thought he could write a couple of telephone books [ by committee over on the House and wire … one-sixth of the U.S. economy … from Washington like a puppeteer.
"It doesn't work that way. These kinds of systems evolve over time through the market process, through lots of people bringing information in, and it doesn't work and it's not going to work."
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