January 11, 2008



IMPEACH BUSH



IMPEACH CHENEY



BIG GOVERNMENT IS OKAY FOR SOME


Conservatives snarl about "big government." They moan about the taxes they pay and just how unfair it is. But they have no problem with big government snooping on us, trampling on civil liberties, or doling out big cash to corporations. If you run a small business and get into financial trouble, you're on your own, pal. But if you run a big corporation you just run to the government and get a bailout. It's happened time and time again. This article by Jon Faulkner is a good dissection of the hypocrisy and greed of conservatives. The article is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Republicans, with their corporate sponsors, constantly rail against big government. Grover Norquist is a conservative activist and a lobbyist who famously said of government, “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Grover is another one of those conservative republicans who offer such gems of wisdom in spite of government’s traditional role of bailing out one American corporation after the next.

The airline industry, the auto makers, defense contractors, railroads, the oil industry, the utilities industry, the telecommunications industry, the savings and loan industry, and now perhaps the biggest bailout of them all - even edging out the S&L catastrophe - the housing industry. Without the generous contributions that American taxpayers make every year, a great many American corporations would be floating belly up, wherever it was that their management made their last, stupid decision.

Public subsidies, tax abatements, low interest loan guarantees, political favors, price supports and free trade agreements. Corporations would have folded up and blown away long ago if not for massive, government infusions of taxpayer cash. Republicans worship the market place and tout its wondrous abilities to solve all financial problems if only government would get out of the way and let the magic work. Of course, when it falls on its ass, the corporate model of perfection comes, cup in hand, to the nasty ol’ gubmint for its salvation.