First Lady Of Gaffes

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted Friday, February 29, 2008 4:20 PM PT

After revealing she had never been "really proud of my country," Michelle Obama damns business as "the money-making industry." By contrast, she says, the Obamas are in "the helping industry." Bad omen.

Visiting a day-care center in Zanesville, Ohio, America's would-be first lady advised the assembled women not to "go into corporate America."

"Become teachers," she counseled. "Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we're encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the moneymaking industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond."

No disrespect to teachers and nurses, but there are problems with those remarks.

First, when she says "move out of the moneymaking industry into the helping industry," she speaks volumes. Apparently, well-paid people in all kinds of profitable fields are, in the Obama worldview, just idle, scheming splinter-collectors who help only themselves.

On the other hand, the social workers who make sure the cash flows from the various elements of the massive government bureaucracy are the great and noble helpers.
However, the oil CEO who invests billions of dollars of his firm's profits in the research and development of new technologies that bring hitherto unreachable deposits of fuel to the cars and homes of millions of Americans is very much in "the helping industry."

So is the pharmaceutical executive who uses her business skills and scientific knowledge to decide to spend billions on R&D for new drugs that lengthen the lives of millions.

The real, productive jobs in the private sector help people in ways government can't. A president who does not understand these things will kill the geese who lay the golden eggs — kill them with high taxes and onerous regulations and ultimately adverse economic conditions.

Second, did the Obamas really make a tough choice to give up high-paying jobs to work in community service? The University of Chicago Medical Center reportedly pays Michelle more than $300,000 a year for her services as "vice president of community and external affairs."

Her husband made a big splash last year with a bill to curtail lavish executive compensation. If he could incorporate that concept into his health care plan and stop hospitals from overpaying their public liaisons, it might go a long way toward cutting health costs.

We doubt, however, that Michelle would find that very "helpful."

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