Link to the Show / Show NotesTimothy P. Carney is the lobbying editor for the Washington Examiner and he joined me last night to talk about his thought provoking new book "Obamanomics".
Before talking about the book, I had to ask Tim about his amazing experience as a young journalist in Washington DC, working as a protege of the legendary reporter and columnist Robert Novak.
The book itself stands conventional wisdom on its head. Carney argues that Obamanomics is actually good for Big Business, at the expense of almost everybody else.
"Just as President George W. Bush, with his bailouts, spending sprees, and new entitlements, abandoned the free market at the behest of Wall Street and drug makers, Barack Obama's vision of bigger government is also the dream of corporate lobbyists.
Obama's healthcare reform, stimulus spending, global warming legislation, and auto industry bailouts are ambitious packages of regulations, taxes, mandates, and spending that benefit Big Business -- what corporation wouldn't welcome more taxpayer-funded subsidies, regulation that crowds out competition, and government mandates that drive more business to them?
There are other big beneficiaries as well: Politicians, who gain more power; and lobbyists, who gain more influence.
The victims are small businesses crushed by regulations and taxes, taxpayers -- especially future taxpayers who will be burdened by the debt financing today's spending sprees -- and consumers, who face higher prices and fewer choices.
What should we call this Big Business-Big Government agenda pursued by President Obama? Although robust corporate-government collusion was hardly invented by the current administration, the U.S. has not seen such a consistent practitioner of corporatism in more than half a century. It's fitting then to name this Big Business-Big Government practice Obamanomics."
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