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 one 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 one 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 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 one 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 discuss 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 over regulated 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.