Michael Barone: Under Obama, Crony Capitalism Again Rules the Day
[Michael-Barone is senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner. A resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, he is also a Fox News Channel contributor and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. His column is published Wednesdays and Sundays.]
In his best-seller "Inside U.S.A.", the hugely readable journalist John Gunther described America as it was in the last year of World War II. He interviewed hundreds of politicians, businessmen and journalists, but only four men rated a separate chapter -- three politicians and Henry J. Kaiser, the California construction magnate who built dams and ships and manufactured concrete and steel and aluminum....
Government spent a lot of money in World War II, and mostly spent it well. Kaiser delivered on his contracts and even managed to build ships out of concrete, most of which did not sink. But, as always happens when government is shoveling out money, lobbyists thrived.
Fast-forward to the present day. Lobbyists, reports the Center for Responsive Politics, had a record 2009 in Barack Obama's Washington. Despite candidate Obama's promises to shun them, they raked in $3,470,000,000. Somewhere up there, Tommy Corcoran is chuckling....
Crony capitalism is now the order of the day in the United States. The government and the United Auto Workers own General Motors and Chrysler, which aren't likely to pay back their billions in TARP money any time soon, if ever. Meanwhile the government tells Americans to stop driving Toyotas.
Back in the 1940s, there was an excuse for crony capitalism -- there was a war on. And FDR had a gift for picking people who, like Kaiser, delivered the goods. Today that excuse is not available, and it's far from apparent that Obama has that gift....
Read entire article at Washington Examiner
In his best-seller "Inside U.S.A.", the hugely readable journalist John Gunther described America as it was in the last year of World War II. He interviewed hundreds of politicians, businessmen and journalists, but only four men rated a separate chapter -- three politicians and Henry J. Kaiser, the California construction magnate who built dams and ships and manufactured concrete and steel and aluminum....
Government spent a lot of money in World War II, and mostly spent it well. Kaiser delivered on his contracts and even managed to build ships out of concrete, most of which did not sink. But, as always happens when government is shoveling out money, lobbyists thrived.
Fast-forward to the present day. Lobbyists, reports the Center for Responsive Politics, had a record 2009 in Barack Obama's Washington. Despite candidate Obama's promises to shun them, they raked in $3,470,000,000. Somewhere up there, Tommy Corcoran is chuckling....
Crony capitalism is now the order of the day in the United States. The government and the United Auto Workers own General Motors and Chrysler, which aren't likely to pay back their billions in TARP money any time soon, if ever. Meanwhile the government tells Americans to stop driving Toyotas.
Back in the 1940s, there was an excuse for crony capitalism -- there was a war on. And FDR had a gift for picking people who, like Kaiser, delivered the goods. Today that excuse is not available, and it's far from apparent that Obama has that gift....