Hilda Solis: Labor Secretary . . . Or Central Planning Commissar?

September 5th, 2011 9:05 AM

Check out Labor Secretary Hilda Solis [she of the solicitude for the rights of illegal immigrants at the expense of American workers] on the CBS Early Show this morning.  She ticks off a list of industries in which the government will make "investments" because "we know" they will be growing in future years.  Kinda like the Obama admin "knew" solar energy was the wave of the future when it "invested" about a half-billion in taxpayer dollars in Solyndra, a company that backed by a major Obama fundraiser.

Participating in pure partisan politics, Solis claimed the unemployment rate in Rick Perry's Texas would be "much higher" were it not for the spending of stimulus money there.  Right.  That vaunted stimulus that for only $800 billion managed to keep the national unemployment to only 8%.  Oh, wait, three years later it's 9.1%.  Never mind.  View video after the jump.



I'll be back with a transcript, but in the meantime watch Comissar Solis spread her gospel of central planning.

JEFF GLOR: Texas Governor Rick Perry is out on the campaign trail saying one in six working-eligible Americans is not working, and that's not progress, that's an economic disaster.  When you hear the leading Republican candidate call the economy a disaster, what are your thoughts?

HILDA SOLIS: Well, I have to think about what's going on in Texas, where there are a lot of people there that are still unemployed .  And we were able to help many states like Texas and others through the recovery act to help create jobs and provide stability. Just think if states like Texas did not receive that money.  Their unemployment would have been much higher.  And we're doing everything we can to make investments in renewable energy, also in health care, IT, broadband. These are areas that we know are going to grow in the next coming months and future and years.  And you can kind of see the trend happening in areas the Southwest. In the Northeast you see investments in the automobile industry.