Ed Driscoll notes an interesting AP “news” “report” by Donna Cassata complaining that “conservatives make it rough for business“. Granted the assumptions of the piece (by “business”, Ms Cassata means a Global MegaCorp CEO with an established market dominance, half the cabinet on speed dial, and a couple of former administration heavyweights on the payroll as “vice-president, government relations” or some such), it’s still impressive that even an American J-school gal can type the following with a straight face. Writing of the “roadblocks” “thrown up” to “industry’s top legislative priorities”, Ms Cassata says of Republicans:
They and their ideological leaders argue that the marketplace should dictate what businesses thrive and falter, not Washington.
But governing “dictating” whose company gets to succeed is entirely non-ideological? In Communist Hungary, there was a socialist operetta with the stirring title of The State Department Store. Maybe Ms Cassata could write an English libretto.
Jim DeMint has a good line on where cronyism leads:
The South Carolina lawmaker warned that the combination of big government and big industry is creating a nation that is becoming “too big to succeed.”
One of the few heartening trends of this election season is the conservative opposition to cronyism. The micro-regulatory state is, by definition, a hierarchy of privilege – but at AP they’re complaining that representative democracy is getting in the way of backdoor lobbying. A Big Government/Big Business alliance promoted by what’s left of Big Media.