Enervate Crony Capitalism: Cut Their Financing

Speaking of crony capitalism, Professor and author Thomas Sowell suggests how to enervate them—cut their financing!

Here is Professor Sowell, (townhall.com) [bold emphasis mine]

Trying to reduce the deficit by cutting spending runs into an old familiar counter-attack. There will be all kinds of claims by politicians and sad stories in the media about how these cuts will cause the poor to go hungry, the sick to be left to die, etc.

My plan would start by cutting off all government transfer payments to billionaires. Many, if not most, people are probably unaware that the government is handing out the taxpayers' money to billionaires. But agricultural subsidies go to a number of billionaires. Very little goes to the ordinary farmer.

Big corporations also get big bucks from the government, not only in agricultural subsidies but also in the name of "green" policies, in the name of "alternative energy" policies, and in the name of whatever else will rationalize shoveling the taxpayers' money out the door to whomever the administration designates, for its own political reasons.

The usual political counter-attacks against spending cuts will not work against this new kind of spending cut approach. How many heart-rending stories can the media run about billionaires who have lost their handouts from the taxpayers? How many tears will be shed if General Motors gets dumped off the gravy train?

It would also be eye-opening to many people to discover how much government money is going into subsidizing all sorts of things that have nothing to do with helping "the poor" or protecting the public. This would include government-subsidized insurance for posh and pricey coastal resorts, located too dangerously close to the ocean for a private insurance company to risk insuring them.

Below is a timely example (hat tip Filipino libertarian colleague Jep Chu) of what Mr. Sowell calls as ‘sad stories in the media’ which projects the image of government as ‘helping the poor and protecting the public’.

The fact is that “subsidizing all sorts of things” signify no less than political propaganda for the benefit of the politically privileged vested interest groups that feeds on government revenues forcibly extracted from the public.

Unfortunately, sad stories sell to irrational voters.