Big government pushed by the right
Dean Baker notes that liberals have let the right wing get away with the small government mythology…
It is astounding how liberals are so happy to work for the right by implying that conservatives somehow just want to leave markets to themselves whereas the liberals want to bring in the pointy-headed bureaucrats to tell people what they should do. This view is, of course, nonsense. Pick an issue, any issue, and you will almost invariably find the right actively pushing for a big role for government.
…These TBTF banks operate with an implicit subsidy from the government. Lenders expect the government to step in to back up these banks’ debt if they fail, as happened on a massive basis in 2008. As a result, TBTF banks can borrow money at lower interest rates than would be possible in a free market.
…To take another easy example, drug patents raise the price of prescription drugs by close to $270 billion a year above their free-market price. This is roughly five Bush tax cuts to the wealthy…
…Patents imply very big government since the government will imprison anyone who produces a drug without the patent holder’s consent. In recent years, big government has been actively working to extend Pfizer’s and Merck’s patent monopolies to the rest of the world through NAFTA, CAFTA, and other recent trade deals.
…While the government has been using the banner of “free trade” to drive down the wages of manufacturing workers, it has simultaneously been increasing the protection afforded doctors in order to prevent any similar downward pressure on their wages…
NAFTA to the contrary notwithstanding, any American can buy prescription drugs online from Canadian pharmacies at very substantial savings.
I’m sort of amazed that the biggest of big goverment programs loved by right wingers goes unmentioned. Pentagon Inc. aka the self licking ice cream cone. Sort of. It’s not like Al Gore ever voted against a defense spending program. Etc.
The Nation ran an article recently where it was revealed that 25% of contracts the DOD puts up for competitive bids only attract a single bidder. Nice odds if you can get them.
well, there is a better example of the right’s love of government:
when they were all for privatizing Social Security, they didn’t mean the people would be able to spend their own money according to their own ideas of value, they meant that the government would force the people to buy “retirement plans” from the private providers.
sound familiar?
Offering the most beneficial Cast iron cookware lunchtime in the spot, pandora jewellery great deals, Los angeles offers any efficiently Philippine, thomas sabo allure, http://www.oakleysunglasses-replica.net/oakley-sunglasses-2011-c-9.html chinese language, pandora bead, Korean every Brit songs.