Obama’s pen strikes again

COLUMN: Obama’s pen strikes again - Daily Inter Lake: Members:
The most important story of the past two weeks was not the visit of Pope Francis to Congress.
It was not the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House.
It was not the resignation of John Boehner as speaker of the House.
It was not the debate over whether a Muslim should be president of the United States.
It was not the invasion of Europe by Middle Eastern refugees.
It was not even the war between Donald Trump and Fox News.
No, the most important story of the past two weeks, perhaps the most important story of the past seven years, is something you almost certainly never heard anything about.
The most important story you never heard anything about in the mainstream media is when President Obama picked up his fabled pen and signed an executive order on Tuesday, Sept. 15, entitled “Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People.”
Ladies and gentlemen, you have just been “Nudged.”
That is a reference to the title of a book by Obama’s former regulatory czar and Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein.
The full title is “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness” and it was co-written with University of Chicago economist Richard H. Thaler.
The argument of that 2008 book is summed up by the authors thusly:
“People often make poor choices — and look back at them with bafflement!
...Encouraging people to make “the right choices” is called by Sunstein and Thaler “libertarian paternalism” — in other words, you are free to do what we think is best for you!
The executive order (written by Sunstein?) says that “the Federal Government should design its policies and programs to reflect our best understanding of how people engage with, participate in, use and respond to those polices and programs.”