President Obama, who warmly greeted Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas meeting last week, actually has something in common with the South American strongman, says Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.
“Here are two world leaders who in the last month have nationalized huge private sector companies,” King tells C-SPAN.
In Obama’s case, he “effectively” nationalized General Motors and Chrysler, ordering GM to fire its chief executive and telling Chrysler to merge with Fiat, the Congressman says.
As for Chavez, “he nationalized one of the great American company’s facilities – Cargill’s rice facility – in Venezuela just about a month ago,” King explains.
Obama and Chavez “have done the same thing to private business,” he says. “And I think that image will soak into the minds of investors around the world on where they want to put their money.”
He says Obama has figured out how he wants to engineer a liberal agenda. “It appears to me that President Obama has drawn a calculus that any elected executive official has the maximum amount of political capital the moment they are inaugurated,” King says.
“And I believe he has determined he will use it as fast as he can to accomplish as many things as he can.”
King doesn’t see Obama concerned about re-election now. “I think he’s concerned about transforming America into the very liberal image that he sees.”
Others have complained that Obama’s economic policies are too liberal as well. For example, magazine publisher Steve Forbes has said the fiscal stimulus relies too heavily on increased spending and too little on tax cuts.
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