Congressman suggests czar appointments are political favors

Some of the many "czars" that President Obama has appointed may be payments of political favors, one Republican lawmaker alleged Saturday.

Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) suggested that part of Obama's 30-some czars may have have been installed due to political patronage.

"There's not been much of a vetting process here," Neugebauer said during an interview on Fox News. "And we wonder if these are serious policy makers, or if they are political favors."

The Texas Republican didn't sound as negative toward the idea of czars as some of his GOP colleagues, saying that czars serve an important purpose, but just need to be vetted.

"A lot of these are in very important positions -- evidently, the president has appointed these," he argued. "I think there's a great concern that, if these are important people to the president, we don't want to deny him having advisors that he thinks he needs to do his job. But the question is we want to make sure we know who these people are."