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Posted on 01/15/2012 1:32:11 PM PST by Kaslin
Contrary to what various news outlets are reporting, President Obama is NOT proposing to cut government. The administration is proposing to take four independent federal agencies that specialize in corporate welfare – along with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative – and combine them with corporate welfare programs at the Department of Commerce to form what would I would argue should be called the Department of Corporate Welfare.
According to reports, this rearranging of the deck chairs would save $300 million a year. That’s peanuts. Worse, those alleged savings will be of no consequence to taxpayers as there is nothing to suggest that the president intends to cut overall spending for the agencies comprising the new bureaucracy. That portends bigger government, not smaller. The president is trying to sell the American taxpayer a false bill of goods.
The president’s proposal is also an attempt to counter the perception – an accurate one – that the administration’s policies are detrimental to commerce. But corporate welfare is detrimental to commerce because the market distortions it creates hinder economic output. Making it easier for select businesses to help themselves to taxpayer-financed subsidies would only perpetrate the same sort of crony capitalist schemes that gave us Solyndra and the Chevy Volt.
Of course, no transparent attempt to appear “business friendly” would be complete without a bone toss to the Small Business Administration. The “bone” this time is the president’s intention to elevate the head of the SBA to the Cabinet. As I discuss in a Cato essay on the SBA, rather than helping small businesses compete against big businesses, the SBA’s loan guarantees mainly help a tiny share of small businesses compete against other small businesses. In reality, the biggest beneficiary of the SBA is the banks, which reap the profits from the loans guaranteed by the agency.
Finally, Republican policymakers talk a good game about cutting government, but they often hide behind calls for making the federal government “more efficient.” Now that the president has seized a political opportunity to sing from the GOP’s hymnal, it’ll be interesting – if not entertaining – to see how Republican policymakers respond. To avoid embarrassment, I recommend offering specific spending cuts.
How is this not national socialism?
First thing I did after reading the headline was to check to see if it was from the “Semi-semi news”.
“How is this not national socialism?”
Of course it is national socialism, just as Bush’s bailout of the auto industry and TARP were national socialism.
Thanks for the post Kaslin.
Wouldn’t it be nice if ‘anyone’ would stand up on stage and enlighten the populace with these insignificant details.
But it won't.
I thought it was without question when I "klicked" on it.
Call it Islamic/Fascism, Stalinism, Marxism, Communism, Socialism, all or a mutation. I is all part of the Obama agenda.
bttt
Because it is
Remember too, when they say Small Business they are
talking about million dollar start ups. Just go to
them and see about anything around 10 to 50 thousand.
Good luck.
Bush’s bailout of the auto industry and TARP plan was (5)pages long until the democats got ahold of it and turned into (2,000) pages long.
Department of Education Budget
1978 - $0
1979 - $15 BILLION
2002 - $48 BILLION
2011 - $71 BILLION
NAEP Reading Scores, Age 9
1980 - 215
1999 - 210
Cost to American Society in excess of DOE budget? 10x? More?
This new Department of Corporate Welfare will have the same trajectory as every other cabinet level department.
Did Bush propose TARP and did he sign it into law?
Notice the Food Stamp President didn’t suggest getting rid of the worthless Dept. of Education. Would save hundreds of billions over the same period. Same for Depts of Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, HUD, etc.
Another new cabinet department with a crappy name? No thanks.
We should get rid of some instead.
Obama may as well just put on green tights, grab a long bow, and start mugging well-dressed people.
Instead of adding a department, Congress should eliminate a few. Buddy Roemer wants to eliminate the Departments of Education & Energy, since they’re unconstitutional.
I wonder just what it is that they want to get done that will be obscured by all that chaos?
My best guess is that every current civil servant in these organizations that is even a little-bit pro-freedom will end up assigned to watch over loans to llama herders in Montana, while rabid Alinskyites replace them in DC.
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