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To: SeekAndFind
The "study" is a big smelly pile of bogus numbers. Check the discussion of methodology. Certainly the authors do identify some subsidy stinkers -- the UAW bailout, for one -- and some debatable judgment calls, such as the various interventions in the financial markets during the financial crisis. But to say every penny spent in these endeavors is a nefarious corporate subsidy driven by dastardly lobbying is laughable. It gets even worse when the study turns to spending. Every dollar in contracts awarded to a corporation is deemed a return on lobbying. While there is plenty of spending I'd like to see cut, it is absurd to consider, for example, the entire defense procurement budget as a lobbying-driven scandal. And of course they harrumph about subsidies to the oil and gas industry. I'm not quite sure what those are supposed to be. But oil is, on balance, massively overtaxed, and most of the oil industry's lobbying is defensive in nature. Etc., etc., etc.

Junk numbers and junk analysis to support a sensationalized headline.

8 posted on 03/16/2015 4:36:10 PM PDT by sphinx
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To: sphinx

The ironic part is that almost all of the “billionaires” and “one percenters” that Baraq and Company complain about are regime affiliates and donors. Somehow the MSM fails to report any of it.


9 posted on 03/16/2015 4:39:18 PM PDT by nascarnation (Impeach, convict, deport)
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To: sphinx

Yeah.

Sunlight Foundation has good software and some good intentions or implementations.

But it’s still Howard Dean and other Dem associates doing it for ideological and political reasons.

Capitalists are not supposed to have rights.


20 posted on 03/16/2015 5:04:27 PM PDT by ifinnegan
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