November 6, 2011 6:50PM 

# You’ve Got the Power; Now Use It 

By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) 

---

<a class="js-popover-trigger cursor-pointer popover-trigger" data-bs-placement="bottom" data-bs-trigger="click" id="popover-trigger"> 

SHARE 

</a> 

In the *Washington Post*, [Dana Milbank urges](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-machiavellian-model-for-obama/2011/11/03/gIQAFYjrlM_story.html) President Obama to follow President Kennedy’s lead and use the power of the federal government to intimidate business:

> Roger Blough, the U.S. Steel president, … defied Kennedy in 1961 by raising prices. “You have made a terrible mistake,” Kennedy told him. Subpoenas flew, FBI agents marched into steel executives’ offices, and Kennedy spoke about IRS agents examining “hotel bills and nightclub expenses \[that\] would be hard to get by the weekly wives’ bridge group out at the country club.”

Yes, that’s a great vision: a president using the far more powerful and far-reaching federal government of today to force every business, every union, every nonprofit in the country to fall in line. Is that really what journalists would like to see — a president deploying subpoenas, FBI agents, and IRS agents to effect political gain? This is just one of the problems with giving any government such powers.

##### Related Tags 

[Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) 

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).