DANIEL GREENFIELD: GOVERNMENT MONEY (THE ROBBING HOODS OF GOVERNMENT…RSK)
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The top 10 wealthiest men and women in America barely have 250 billion dollars between them. That sounds like a lot of money, until you look at annual Federal budgets which run into the trillions of dollars, and the country’s national debt which approaches 15 trillion dollars. And that’s not taking into account state budgets. Even Rhode Island, the smallest state in the union, with a population of barely a million, has a multi-billion dollar budget.
As the 10th richest man in America, Michael Bloomberg wields a personal fortune of a mere 18 billion dollars, but as the Mayor of the City of New York, he disposes of an annual budget of 63 billion dollars. In a single year, he disposes of three times his own net worth. A sum that would wipe out the net worth of any billionaire in America. That is the difference between the wealth wielded by the 10th wealthiest man in America, and the mayor of a single city. And that is the real concentration of wealth. Not in the hands of individuals, but at every level of government, from the municipal to the state houses to the White House.
While liberal pundits pop on their stovepipe hats, fix their diamond stickpins and cravats, and trade in 19th century rhetoric about the dangers of trusts and monopolies– the power in 20th century America lies not in the hands of a few industrialists, but with massive monopolistic trust of government, and its network of unions, non-profits, lobbyists and PAC’s. The railroads are broken up, offshore drilling is banned, coal mining is in trouble and Ma Bell has a thousand quarreling stepchildren– now government is the real big business. How big?
The 2008 presidential campaign cost 5.3 billion dollars. Another 1.5 billion for the House and the Senate. And that’s not counting another half a billion from the 527’s and even shadier fundraising by shadowy political organizations. But that’s a small investment when you realize that they were spending billions of dollars to get their hands on trillions of dollars.
Do you know of any company in America where for a mere few billion, you could become the CEO of a company whose shareholders would be forced to sit back and watch for four years while you run up trillion dollar deficits and parcel out billions to your friends? Without going to jail or being marched out in handcuffs. A company that will allow you to indulge yourself, travel anywhere at company expense, live the good life, and only work when you feel like it. That will legally indemnify you against all shareholder lawsuits, while allowing you to dispose not only of their investments, but of their personal property in any way you see fit.
There is only one such company. It’s called the United States Government.
It wasn’t always this way. There used to be limitations on executive and legislative power. But those limitations are gone along with the top hat and the diamond stickpin. Under an ideological cloak of darkness, politicians act as if they can do anything they want. Public outrage is met with alarmist news stories about the dangers of violence, as if this were the reign of the Bourbon kings, not a democratic republic whose right of protest is as sacrosanct as its flag and its seal. Instead the republic is dominated by political trusts, party machines, media cartels, public sector unions and a million vermin who have sucked the cow dry and are starting in on its tender meat.
Consider that in 2008, Obama pulled in 20 million from the health care industry. (McCain only 7 million). Afterward, he conspired to pass a law which mandated that every American be forced to buy health insurance from the industry. There is no definite figure for how much money the industry will make from this, but it will be a whole lot more than the mere 20 million they invested in him. During the days of the robber barons, the government never mandated that everyone must buy a product from them. Private companies might have contrived such control over the marketplace, but the IRS was never enlisted to collect their bills for them.
Every New York Times columnist who summons up the ghost of T.R. to mewl about the “concentration of wealth” should hang his head in shame. If Theodore Roosevelt were to come to life and behold such a connivance between the government and the industries it created, at the expense of the people, whether it is HMO’s or the mortgage market, is there any real doubt that he would seize his big stick and bust some trusts.
How much money has flowed from the Obama Administration to its friends in the private sector in just the last year alone. And how much of that money was used to secure jobs for its allied unions, money which is then kicked back to liberal politicians running for office. Entire states are going bankrupt because of political trusts formed by politicians and public sector unions which pass money back and forth to each other in the plain sight of God and the American taxpayer.
This is not the mere concentration of wealth, but the ruthless concentration of power. The real money isn’t coming from that top 1 percent, it’s coming from unions, lobbies and companies which use political power to extract public money. And that money goes to the party which is so determined to keep on extracting that money no matter what it takes.
The big government left keeps playing the class warfare card, but for all their murmuring, it is not the top 1 percent that robs the middle-class blind and then sends them the bill. Even the worst company in the world isn’t as larcenously extortionate as the politicians who spend and kick back, and then raise cry poverty and raise taxes. They shout that we need to raise taxes on the rich, and supposing that we do, where will that money go? Even if we strip that 1 percent of all their wealth and dress them up in barrels, is there anyone who does not believe that those in power will still contrive to spend it all and run up huge deficits anyway.
And still some of the most greediest and most abusive companies, were invariably either created by the government or operate in close partnership with it. HMO’s were created by the government. Banks fed off Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s subsidized mortgages like vultures. Do we really need to go into insurance companies, defense contractors or Sallie Mae. AT&T is considered one of the worst companies in America, and it’s also one of the biggest political donors. Is there a connection there? Only that companies close to the government don’t need to worry as much about what the public thinks of them. Hate the airlines? They’ve both been overregulated and subsidized into incompetence. Airlines have been bailed out and protected from competition too many ways to count, because of the unions riding on their coattails. And those unions are destroying airline after airline, while the non-union airlines prosper.
It’s easy enough to go down the list, but why bother. Suffice it to say that American business is looking a lot like Soviet business did, full of companies with contempt for their customers, and an unctuous smile for the government. They know where the money is coming from. And in an era of cut throat price competition, and high labor and regulation costs, it’s just easier for them to extract the public’s money by going over their heads to the politicians. It’s no longer a free market in which individuals make economic choices, but a collective economy with governments fixing prices and then turning around and taking more of your money to pay back the companies.
Forget the old trusts and the cartoons of moneybags sitting on his gold. The new trusts operate out of Washington D.C. for the benefit of the public. The money goes back and forth, lobbyists, unions, politicians, consultants, contractors, activists and lunatics huddling together and passing bills that no one has read. And still the defenders of big government treat any calls for reform as a conspiracy of the rich. Yet the two richest men in America, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, were holding fundraisers for Obama. And the tenth richest man in America runs one of the biggest bastions of liberalism. And number 14 on the list, George Soros, is the left’s sugar daddy.
But this isn’t a battle of billionaires. Mere money no longer means what it once did. The billionaire is a dinosaur. The wealthiest men in America can’t wait to get rid of their holdings. In the free market, money made you king. But under socialism, money just buys you access and leverage. The leverage to force every man, woman and child to buy your product. The real concentration of wealth is no longer among men, but among institutions. Like electricity passing along copper wire, it jumps among unions, political machines, companies, non-profits and back again. Its function is to provide the motive power for the great beast of government to grind on. And the American taxpayer is left lying flat in the street.
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