Krauthammer: Obama Has No Idea What to Do, “Swag Bill” Banning Gov’t Coffee Mugs Is “All for Show, There’s No Substance” (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on November 12, 2011
No more coffee mugs, no more T-shirts… oh, yeah, POTUS banning government-branded promotional trinkets and doo-dads will defray Team Obama’s horrific multi-trillion-dollar debt pronto.
Who does the Spendthrift in Chief think he’s fooling with this feeble anti-swag, thimble-to-empty-the-ocean bill to reverse course on our tanking economy? Just the statist media, Democrat voters, and maybe rapper Jay-Z.
Political analyst Charles Krauthammer responded to Obama’s new bill with, “It would take a lot of mugs and t-shirts to pay off a 15-trillion-dollar debt.”
Krauthammer rightly criticized Pres. Obama’s phony-baloney executive order this week that barely trims government waste and overspending, his bill banning government “swag” as nothing more than a blatant campaign stunt. He says Obama is clueless about what he’s doing.
“It’s all for show. There is no substance.”
Krauthammer: Obama Has No Idea What to Do | November 2011
Reported by Lynn Sweet at Chicago Sun-Times, Obama bans government swag: No more t-shirts, mugs:
To save money, President Obama will ban government swag Wednesday, crack down on agencies issuing cell phones and laptops that are not needed or go unused and curb travel by federal employees.
Swag–free promotional merchandise–is an acronym for “stuff we all get.” In any event, under Obama it is to be no more.
The White House said Obama’s executive order “directs agencies to stop wasting taxpayer money on non-essential items used for promotional purposes, such as clothing, mugs, and non-work related gadgets.”
Obama’s action is the latest executive order he is announcing to show he is moving the federal government along even as Republicans in Congress, a year this week from election day, are determined to block many of his larger proposals.
Obama is also ordering federal agencies to reduce the number of cell phones, smartphones, laptops and tablet computers for employees on the grounds some workers are issued more devices then they need.
Then there’s the flip side of the swag coin — reported by The Hill, ‘Swag’ industry warns of job losses from Obama executive order:
The promotional products industry is worried that President Obama’s executive order to cut back on federal agency “swag” could lead to job losses.
Obama this week ordered agencies to find ways to cut about $4 billion per year from the federal government’s budget for travel, cellphones, conferences and “swag” like agency-branded mugs and clothing.
“We certainly wouldn’t want people to stop using promotional products, if they can be used efficiently and effectively, in a knee-jerk way and cost jobs,” said Tim Andrews of the Advertising Specialty Institute, which represents the promotional products industry.
“For the president to say that buying promotional products is a waste is extremely troubling and shows how little he knows about the industry,” Matt Bertram, president of Fields Manufacturing, said in a statement. “This is again another example of our administration making quick decisions that will hurt small business.”
Andrews said the $17 billion industry employs up to 500,000 workers in the United States, and that the government is a major customer.
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