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Sarah Palin may be the one liberals have been waiting for

Sarah Palin may be the one liberals have been waiting for

I made the point the other day that Sarah Palin’s speech in Indianola, Iowa, went to the core of the Tea Party movement:

I don’t know what the future holds for Palin, whether she will be a candidate or just a powerful voice against crony capitalism.  I also don’t know whether the two are compatible.  I am not convinced that even the Republican electorate is ready for the message.  That’s for another day.

What I do know is that in attacking crony capitalism, Palin gave voice to those of us who refuse to buy into the Democratic narrative that the answer to Democratic union pandering is Republican big business pandering.  It’s not about them, it’s about us.

Pigs fly today.  Anand Giridharadas at The NY Times picks up on this theme, recognizing that in vilifying Palin liberals have closed their minds to Palin’s ideas, which are liberal (in the traditional sense, not the modern Democratic Party sense):

Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.

Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.

A severe injustice has been perpetrated on the American people not by the vile derangement directed at Palin by the mainstream media, left-blogosphere and establishment conservatives, but by the closing of their collective minds.

The author also hints at possible things to come:

Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there?

The political conversation in the United States is paralyzed by a simplistic division of labor. Democrats protect that portion of human flourishing that is threatened by big money and enhanced by government action. Republicans protect that portion of human flourishing that is threatened by big government and enhanced by the free market.

What is seldom said is that human flourishing is a complex and delicate thing, and that we needn’t choose whether government or the market jeopardizes it more, because both can threaten it at the same time.

Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.

On one side would be those Americans who believe in the power of vast, well-developed institutions like Goldman Sachs, the Teamsters Union, General Electric, Google and the U.S. Department of Education to make the world better. On the other side would be people who believe that power, whether public or private, becomes corrupt and unresponsive the more remote and more anonymous it becomes; they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity.

No one knows yet whether Ms. Palin will actually run for president. But she did just get more interesting.

This probably will not signal a sea change in media coverage of Palin, or among conservative pundits.  Liberals and conservatives alike have been played for fools by their media and their parties.

But hopefully it is a starting point of the recognition that Palin stands alone among major political figures in the United States seeking a transformation of the country consistent with its founding principles, not against them, principles which used to appeal to liberals.  Palin’s anti-statist anti-crony capitalism message has the power to reach across parties, which is why that message gets buried in Palin Derangement Syndrome.

With Palin, liberals will not get their nanny state, but that nanny state is disappearing by economic necessity anyway.  But they also will not get a crushing corporatist/unionist state serving the interests of the politically well-connected, which is where we are heading rapidly, and there is no offender worse than Barack Obama.

Oddly enough, Sarah Palin may be the one liberals have been waiting for.

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Comments

I keep going back to a posting I read (but lost the source) by a “Progressive” commenter …
“Can’t we all agree it’s about dividing up the spoils ?”

I had never seen it so condensed.

The confessional lede was the best I have ever read for a Palin article, especially since it’s in the NYT:

“Let us begin by confessing that, if Sarah Palin surfaced to say something intelligent and wise and fresh about the present American condition, many of us would fail to hear it.
That is not how we’re primed to see Ms. Palin.”

Also check out Tony Lee’s “Did Perry Always Jealously See Palin as a Threat?”

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46056

Little thoughts | September 9, 2011 at 10:16 am

I decided a while back that I am a “big-skeptic”. To clarify, I’m skeptical of things big. That includes big government, big Wall Street, big companies. Sarah is the first politician to put it out there.

The NYT’s interest in giving voice to Palin will last only so her message can be used as a foil against the likes of a Perry or Romney.

Once the right and center right are suitably divided, and the muddled middle cowed into accepting Obama, the long knives will be back out for Palin, sharper than ever.

She needs to treat this like the ambush that it is, and charge straight at their position.

Judging people by their enemies is has some validity. The screaming hysteria that Palin induces in the MSM, the faculty lounge, late night comics, etc. is inconsistent with her being inconsequential.

Exhibit A: “Death Panels”. That was her term; it is now part of the lexicon. The Powers That Be scream over and over that there are no such things. How many people do you hear screaming that there is no such thing as a unicorn?

I am a liberal and if Sarah Palin runs I will vote for her.

At this point, Palin cannot win. She would be better off continuing to stir the pot from the outside. Eventually, she may be in a better position to run for President.

    Rosalie in reply to JayDick. | September 9, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    I feel this is her best chance to win. O has failed miserably and people are going to be desperate for change. They may hold their nose, but I think they’ll vote for her. And then maybe we’ll get real change.

    Sandy Daze in reply to JayDick. | September 9, 2011 at 6:05 pm

    Not sure what you mean by “At this point“. . .

    My sense of it is, if Palin is the Republican nominee against Voldermort, she will win, and I’ll even postulate she’ll win big.

    ~~

    Last April I read the Palin Electability Series. I found it very persuasive then, and find nothing to challenge that assessment today.

    Until such time as she announces she will not seek the nomination, or in the unlikely event that she seeks but does not win the Republican Party nomination, for me, it is all in for Palin.

    Should she not be the Republican nominee, I will support ABO – Anyone But Voldermort.

    To repeat, if Sarah Palin seeks the nomination, she earns it; ultimately winning the election on 6 Nov 12 becoming the 45th President of the United States.

    Take good care,
    Sandy

    Juba Doobai! in reply to JayDick. | September 10, 2011 at 7:00 am

    Who died and left you God, Dick?

Glad to see voice given to this, great post. I think this Angelo Codevilla article was one that really got me thinking about this in a way that crossed party lines.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the

I hope others enjoy it like I did.

I don’t think that’s quite what is going on.

The media’s war with Palin is fluid. The release of the documentary “The Undefeated” coupled with the release of the over 24,000 e-mails changes the situation. The truth is out there now regarding Palin for anyone who hasn’t closed their mind. In order for the media to have any shred of credibility left that have to start admitting the truth incrementally. Otherwise the accusations by ordinary Americans of the media JournØlisting for Obama since the last election gain more and more traction and weight. They are still “playing” us. Don’t give the corrupt cretins credit for anything. Palin is scoring with Reagan Democrats and more and more Independents and they know it.
As one of the comments on the thread at LI noted (by “ThomasD”), this represents an attempted ambush on the part of the NYT. Caveat emptor.

The media will never forgive Palin for her 2008 convention speech and the subsequent campaign speeches following. She threw down the gauntlet and declared war on them in their eyes. She impugned their divine right to influence the masses and being the childish little pricks they are, they decided they had to bring her down totally to re-enforce their own credentials. Really, they give me a new reason for wanting a Palin presidency. You know, besides the one that I feel would save this country. Maybe, just maybe, she would make them further irrelvant by banning some of them from the WH press room or at least pick and choose ala Clinton. The only downside for this would be that instead of the media cleaning up the floors of the press room with their knees, the WH would have to hire floor sweepers.

[…] » Sarah Palin may be the one liberals have been waiting for – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism. […]

Palin could really be onto something, both in terms of actually diagnosing what’s wrong with the country and articulating it in a way that appels to people across the ideological spectrum.

I would suggest, however, that the idea she is expressing needs a name, and that the name can’t include “Palin” or “Sarah” or even “Tea”; otherwise, it will have trouble gaining traction among her many detractors.

We should call it the “Indianola Thesis,” after the town in Iowa where she gave the speech.

    I like “The Indianola Thesis” but it’s kind of non-discript.

    This may be too wordy, but perhaps the “Anti-Crony Capitalism Ensures States Success” (ACCESS) Movement.

ThomasD~:Once the right and center right are suitably divided, and the muddled middle cowed into accepting Obama, the long knives will be back out for Palin, sharper than ever.

If she runs, I don’t think she will be dumb enough to fall for it, no matter what the LSM tries to make us think about her intelligence. They may start out propping her up to tear down the front runners only to find themselves with a runaway train that they can’t stop.

There’s two points to this:

1.) Sarah Palin may be the one “classical” liberals have been waiting for. As I’ve said for several years, the modern liberal (aka the “statist”) abhors the individualism and self-reliance of the classical liberal in favor of the large, faceless uniformity imposed upon the masses achieved by Marxism in order to achieve Utopia. It’s why I titled my blog “Fleeing From Utopia.” (which I really need to write an update for).

2.) At this point though, even the statists are starting to hope and pray for a Palin run, because they see the writing on the wall that the Republican Primaries have been energized by the entrance of Gov. Perry to the race.

A perfect example is the sustained CHEER that went up when Brian Williams asked Gov. Perry about executions in Texas. Before Williams even finished the question, the audience was cheering for Perry, and cheered long and loud after Perry effectively said he had no qualms about his State’s death-penalty record.

The TEA Partiers have generally found a voice in Perry, and at this point, the only way to prevent the TEA Partiers from driving the debate is to get Gov. Palin into the race. Further, Perry is vastly popular with the independent vote, and is making gains into the Reagan Democrat / Blue Dog demographic. Unless he’s countered soon, Perry is going to (rather quickly) swamp out the minor candidates, and then absolutely crush Gov. Romney in the Primary Season. The only person who even begins to have that kind of immediate horsepower is Palin.

1. Angelo Codevilla, Walter Russell Mead, and Glenn Reynolds have been saying similar things. (Cf. PrincetonAl’s comment.) This is another indication that Palin is developing a brain trust and intellectual infrastructure. Good.

2. ThomasD suspects the NYT’s sincerity. I agree, but turnabout is fair play: did Palin give this speech out of conviction or opportunism? IMO she is trying to create a distinction between Sarah Palin and Politicians as Usual. The speech is consistent with such a strategy; afaic it may or may not articulate her core beliefs.

3. Per JayDick, Palin may be emerging as a Right thought leader: a conduit between the conservative/libertarian intellectual apparatus and the voting base & general public. Good.

4. The foregoing does not change my bottom line wrt Palin:

In September 2007 I identified her as a potential President. My enthusiasm ebbed during her post-convention performance in the 2008 campaign, but I made excuses. When she resigned as governor, I withdrew my support.

(I also withdrew my support for Romney when he declined to run for reelection as MA governor. I am closer to reconsidering Romney than I am to reconsidering Palin.)

5. Afterthought wrt BarbaraS: I enthusiastically received Palin’s convention speech as a declaration of total, take-no-prisoners war on leftist conventional wisdom. Talking that way to a national audience draws fire. Palin has been wounded; a serious wound–resigning–was self-inflicted. Will she recover? Time will tell.

    ThomasD in reply to gs. | September 9, 2011 at 1:24 pm

    Heh, I don’t suspect their sincerity, I take their well established insincerity as a given. With the leftist NYT it is never a question of motive, but of intent.

    Given Palin’s already established track record of confronting the entrenched Republicans and big oil cronyism in AK this current line of argument strikes me as entirely consistent with her core beliefs.

    Pat D in reply to gs. | September 9, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    Palin’s governorship was based on a coalition of Democrats and anti-establishment Republicans. The corrupt GOP establishment loathed her – still does. After her convention speech, and the energy she added to the McCain campaign, the Obama team viewed her as a threat. The Democrats declared war on her, assisted by their allies on Journolist. After the election Alaska turned into hostile territory. Her enemies discovered that she had created a weapon perfectly crafted to pin her down in Alaska and destroy her reputation. Yep, her ethics legislation let anyone file ethics complaints against her no matter how frivolous. The ethics complaints caused her to run up $500,000 in legal bills. Meanwhile, her governing coalition crumbled as Democrats lined up behind the Obama camp and the GOP establishment left her hanging. The Alaska legislature overrode her veto on taking Stimulus funds, for example.
    Her enemies had her checkmated. So, she did something they didn’t expect. Even knowing it would probably destroy her political future, she stepped off the board.

    Since then, she has resolved her family’s fortunes with two books, speaking engagements, a TV series promoting Alaska, and a gig on Fox News. She has also been a constant thorn in the side of the Obama administration with her numerous Facebook notes. Her take down of Obamacare is a classic:

    http://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-palin/lies-damned-lies-obamacare-6-months-later-its-time-to-take-back-the-20/433315368434

    My feeling is that she has been planning to defeat Obama since 2008, one way or another, and every thing she has done since then should be seen in that light.

[…] Prof Jacobsen is cautiously optimistic: This probably will not signal a sea change in media coverage of Palin, or among conservative pundits.  Liberals and conservatives alike have been played for fools by their media and their parties. […]

I am a Liberal, and if Sarah Palin is the nominee, I will vote for her.

The change of heart would suggest that the journalists and various polls have misrepresented the situation.

The people who live in America should appreciate its classical liberal predisposition. While those who immigrated to escape the progressive totalitarianism which marks their societies, should work to prevent the transformation of our nation to establish what they left behind.

The government is mandated with the task of providing oversight of our affairs and to promote the conditions where our economy and lives will thrive.

It is not the proper role of a body with a granted authority, which derives its funding through involuntary exploitation, to direct our lives. This is the premise for progressive corruption of individuals and society.

Keynes understood this, while the so-called “liberals” and “progressives”, who claim to rely on his insight do not. They seem to believe that with progressive control of individuals and their enterprises they can overcome the causal factors which lead to corruption. The evidence does not support their assertion and, in fact, demonstrates that their arguments and actions are progressively flawed.

Palin is right. The left-wing regimes, whether they are communist, socialist, fascist, dictatorial, etc., are all merely crony capitalist systems. The distinction between those systems and classical liberalism, lies with who is privileged to access capital and power. With enlightenment, that privilege was restored to individuals. It was never a right and it is not guaranteed.

Human society, in its simplest form, can be described by competing interests. It is these interests which keep the honest people honest, hold the corrupt accountable, and cope with others who choose to fail. There is no legitimate reason to believe that the people who compose the government are uniquely virtuous in any manner. There is no legitimate reason to prefer an authoritarian monopoly (i.e., government) over a private monopoly. In fact, the first has the potential for far greater abuses, as it is both funded through explicit involuntary exploitation and possesses a granted authority.

gs: Judging from her record, my opinion is that she is sincere in her stance. While some term her program ACES as socialist—and they wouldn’t be completely wrong—the fact that it was created based on Alaska’s constitution makes it more than acceptable to me. According to her emails, whenever there was a conflict between her personal preferences and the constitutions (US/AK)she governed according to those principles and documents. As you can tell, I am a convert who sincerely hopes she gets in. If she can get her message out, and that is a huge IF, she has a good chance of winning. Either way, the eventual nominee gets my vote.

    delicontessa: The fate of ACES may be worth following up as an indicator of the durability of Palin’s gubernatorial results. In passing I’ve seen claims that her successor Sean Parnell, supposedly a former oil lobbyist, is trying to roll ACES back. Is Parnell a corporate water carrier or is ACES flawed?

    Pro-ACES: here.

    Anti-ACES: here and here.

      delicountessa in reply to gs. | September 9, 2011 at 1:34 pm

      ~Yes, I have seen some of that as well; however, watch BP and follow the money. While the one side says that it has been a problem, the other side says that BP made an issue of it, claims they will not drill while it is in place AFTER they had originally agreed to do so. I’m not saying I know which side is correct. Like every issue, there are probably nuggets of truth in both the pros and cons.

I am a liberal and if Sarah Palin runs I will vote for her.

The truth about Sarah has always been there for anyone to discover. She fought the insiders, the good old boys, and the moochers in her own party as Governor and won. Sure, she is great at fighting Democrats but she fights corruption in both parties and does not compromise with it and that’s why she is my first choice.
Also, as for the often repeated, “she can’t win” opinion, Sarah has been proving the pundits and experts wrong since she got into politics. I trust her and know she can beat “conventional wisdom”, (it’s usually wrong, by the way), again.

All the candidates, even Perry to some extent, are establishment elite. If one of them wins the presidency nothing much will change re smaller government. Having said that, any of them would be better than obama. I decided long ago that that if the angel Gabriel came down and ran on the dim ticket I wouldn’t vote for him. Not because I thought he would be corrupt but because of the corrupt baggage he would bring with him aka the dim party. An entrenched party, whether dim or republican, becomes too powerful for our good and the whole reason for two parties is to keep both honest and on their toes.

Finally someone has written about what I heard her say in Iowa. Everyone I spoke with or read heard something else but my point was it was no accident that she was attacked by conservatives and liberals. It was their fear showing through. Sarah you gotta run for “WE THE PEOPLE”.

If Sarah runs and wins the nomination, does anyone seriously think a majority of people will be so turned off they will vote for obama?

Some quite intelligent comments on this thread. I have one major complaint: the term “crony capitalism”. The situation where government favors friends, allies, business partners (hidden), campaign “contributors”, etc. That is NOT capitalism, that is corruption. Call it what it is.

IMO: 1) corruption is undefined in the absence of government involvement. It basically cannot exist in a free market. If I overpay a friend for a good or service with my own money, that is not corruption. If I take money from taxpayers and direct it to a friend (Solyndra), that is corruption and 2) The measure of the level of corruption in a society is the degree that getting rich requires connection with government. When Harry Truman left office, he carried his own suitcases. Bill Clinton earned over $100M in the first two-three years after leaving office; Gore maybe approaching $1B–before Tipper’s cut.

I have some experience in Latin America–generally considered hugely corrupt. I am not so sure we are in any position to throw stones. I think our corruption is different, but probably a lot more expensive than theirs.

Palin can talk tough about crony capitalism, but a number of legitimate questions remain about whether or not it is the fault of Democrats/liberals refusing to take this message to heart because of their apparent hatred/jealousy of her political acumen.

It would seem that she has generally, and coyly, downplayed her track record to remain in the conversation as a politician who appears to, but may not necessarily, duke it out against the corporatocrats. That is, she is playing both sides to the middle, like any cagey, veteran, modern-day politician.

True, while governor, Palin worked with Democrats and moderate GOP’ers to raise taxes on the powerful oil industry in Alaska. Raising taxes? This very action alone, we have been told by conservatives, is a job killer. So was there any Republican establishment and Fox News colleagues outrage on this “disturbingly liberal conduct”?

Indeed, her successor has rolled back some of those taxes, claiming it discouraged oil investments. And how did Palin respond to this reversal?

Working with Democrats? This very action alone, we have been told by conservatives, is RINOeseque. So, has she hammered the point home during her stump speeches touting that she is willing to cross the aisle to take on the special interests? Not to my recollection.

Yet, she remains the darling of the Tea Party and the favorite daughter of the Beltway Republicans with her conservative credentials, two seemingly lockstep groups, but who actually have major ideological differences at their core. If Palin seeks to run, and win, the GOP nomination, then she better make it her NUMBER ONE GOAL to repeated state, especially on her appearances on Fox News, that Republicans sometimes must confront powerful business interests with enforcing existing regulations or strengthening current laws; that effective governing means crossing the aisle and seeking compromise; and that balancing a budget may require the raising of taxes.

True reform—not pandering to the base—established Palin’s broad popularity in Alaska.

[…] by William A. Jacobson September 9, 2011 Legal Insurrection […]

I called BS when I read this earlier from Drudge. I would not doubt if the NYT and the Obama admin “collabed” to throw some good press to Palin, especially after watching the debates. No one is even asking whether Obama is in over his head or not; Independents are now kicking the tires on Romney and Perry.

Either way, the fact this story appeared after all of the BS they’ve ran on Palin since 2008 goes a long way in showing how deep in the hole Teh One is.

I like Palin, but if she falls for the “McCain Shower Shiv” trick, she’s an idiot.

Note 2000-2008: (McCain Shower Shiv: Have a Republican candidate garner accolades from the mainstream press as principled and a “Maverick”; have said Republican be duped into thinking he has a relationship of mutual respect and trust with the press; let the Republican pol get a major national party nomination;

Have the Republican pol assume a vulnerable position of trust with the press (bend over in the shower to pick up his soap/washcloth); have the press run scurrilous hit piece stories and attack news stories dragging the Republican pol/wife/children/business associates/people he doesn’t even know through the mud (Repeatedly shiv the person in their back while they are bent over int he shower);

Experience delicious schadenfreude when the Republican pol is shocked and hurt his family and integrity was attacked by the press in such a partisan manner. Have the press remind the politician that “Politics is a contact sport.”

[…] Legal Insurrection, William A. Jacobson comments: A severe injustice has been perpetrated on the American people not by the vile derangement […]

“they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity”

Many years ago, those enclaves were called states.

Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.

Interesting acknowledgement of the liceity of the Principle of Subsidiarity, eh?

One suspects that the rash of (R) Palin-Dissing (Coulter, Ingraham, Rove, and even Erickson) has more to do with her ‘Not a Club Member’ status than anything else.

Anti-neocon appears to be anti-reality. Sarah Palin has a track record, and it is available for all to see. She is a good-government, limited government constitutionalist (a term that I prefer to conservative because conservative, like liberal, has lost its meaning in modern usage).

Constitutionalists, and I include Palin, choose the GOP because it is the party that is the most compatible with their principles. That does not mean a perfect fit. I hope that Palin will remain part of the GOP, as will the Tea Party, and try to shape the party. This seems to me a more productive course than trying to establish another national party.

But the venom on the right is as strong as ever. The “most popular” blogs on the right seem to manage at least a post or two a week that manages to trash Palin either in an outright or a passive-aggressive manner.

A week doesn’t go by that I don’t see hundreds of comments on these blogs that begin with “I used to be a big Sarah Palin supporter but….”. They’ve become as ubiquitous as “I never thought this would happen to me” in Penthouse (not that I ever read Penthouse or anything O_O).

Sheer speculation follows. Assuming Obama and the Democrats expect a Republican president, maybe they could somehow simply stave off another economic crash until after Obama leaves office.

BarbaraS: “The only downside for this would be that instead of the media cleaning up the floors of the press room with their knees, the WH would have to hire floor sweepers.”

So even Obama should vote for Sarah, since it would mean more jobs. ;-p

Always ahead of the curve, Professor! That’s why we come here.

An aversion to crony capitalism is hardly a Palin innovation. It’s a fundamental point that conservatives have been making since Bill Buckley was still at Yale. Indeed, hostility to the bank bailouts, the favoritism of the auto bailouts, and the endemic cronyism in the “green jobs” scam is arguably the driving force behind the 2010 conservative upsurge at the polls.

    Pat D in reply to JEBurke. | September 9, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    Her innovation is to destroy crony capitalism by eliminating corporate income taxation.

    “I propose to eliminate all federal corporate income tax. And hear me out on this. This is how we create millions of high-paying jobs. This is how we increase opportunity and prosperity for all.

    But here’s the best part: To balance out any loss of federal revenue from this tax cut, we eliminate corporate welfare and all the loopholes and we eliminate bailouts. This is how we break the back of crony capitalism because it feeds off corporate welfare, which is just socialism for the very rich.”

    From her Iowa speech.

      Viator in reply to Pat D. | September 9, 2011 at 8:15 pm

      Palin’s “No Corporate Income tax” idea. It would decomission one of the great sausage machines in the pork factory. It would make US based corporations much more competitive. The ramifications for job creation might be substantial. No more would lobbyists and politicians be able to trade exemptions and tax breaks for donations.

      $225 billion in corporate income taxes vs. about $95 billion in corporate subsidies with the second number hard to pin down – my guess it may be larger. A $130 billion gap – not very revenue neutral. If Palin ever makes it to Washington there may be enough chairs rearranged that far larger figures than that will appear in both the positive and negative sides of the ledger. Depending on the congress it might be doable?

      No corporate income taxes – would that shake some substantial Palin 2012 campaign donations loose?

      And would that policy repatriate the reputed $2 trillion sitting offshore resulting in a $2 trillion positive jolt to the US economy?

      That’s five wins. There may be more. For example, US corporate decisions might become more productivity based rather than tax based.

      retire05 in reply to Pat D. | September 9, 2011 at 10:54 pm

      “corporate income tax” Do you even know how those taxes are determined? “corporate welfare?” How does that work? “crony capitalism”, just another catch phrase for people who don’t understand the taxes businesses pay or how it works.

      We hear a lot about “subsidities”. Do you know what they are? Do you think it is the federal government handing a company a check with money taken from the taxpayers?

      How was that speech nothing more than catch phrases about things you know little of? Were you aware that the “subsidities” that the left complains oil companies get are nothing more than tax deductions that ALL companies are allowed? How is Palin’s railing on “corporate welfare” any different than the left’s railing on “corporate welfare” for the industries they love to hate?

      I am constantly amazed how people think they can get by without large corporations. Can you provide your own oil well with the ability to refine that oil into gasoline for your car? Can you provide your own cell phone service or your own cable TV? If you don’t like big companies, don’t buy their products are services, but I bet you are not willing to do without them and don’t have the means to produce them.

      Do you not see the conflicting statements? How do you justify getting rid of both taxation and loopholes? If there are no corporate taxation, there is no need for loopholes.

      So now Palin is adopting the Democrats philosophy of demonizing corporations, and you think that is conservative?

        The systems that is currently in place where corporations like GE receive government business, subsidies and even have the power to have special laws and regulations introduced for their individual benefit is hardly a conservative concept.

        Jeffrey Immelt wasn’t seated in the Predisent’s box for any other reason than he is a friend of Obama and the Democrats and symbolizes the special and unfair advantage GE holds over other corporations.

          retire05 in reply to bw222. | September 10, 2011 at 9:10 am

          And because we live in a free market, you have the option of not buying GE products. I don’t. Simply because I think Jeffrey Immelt is such a schmuck.

          But to use general terms to describe ALL large corporations is wrong. Americans are now at a point where they want specifics, not generalities. They want solutions, not vague references to the problems. We already know the problems.

        Again….while what she says is interesting, I’m still at a loss to figure out what she means.

        One way to look at ‘subsidies’ is Fed/State rule/policy-making which benefits some, but not all, corporate entities. To my mind, that stuff is wrong. That’s not the same as direct purchases–which is to say e.g., military hardware, staples, paper, etc.

        “Bailouts” is clear, I think; but that’s a much more murky swamp in which to tread.

          retire05 in reply to dad29. | September 10, 2011 at 9:17 am

          A prime example of what you are pointing out is the oil industry. The “subsidities” that the Democrats keep harping on are nothing more than the same tax deductions that other industries are allow to use.

          But it seems to be en vogue to pick an industry and demonize it, be it the oil industry, AT &T, the drug companies, and now Gibson Guitar. It is nothing more than class warfare. Yet we continue to pour more and more money into that dry hole called the U.S. Postal Service, and no one ever mentions them.

        Viator in reply to retire05. | September 10, 2011 at 9:07 am

        “A ripe target for reform is the sugar program, which protects sugar growers and inflates domestic sugar to twice the world price. This racket costs U.S. families about $2 billion annually, hitting them whenever they buy chocolates, breakfast cereal and the like.”

        http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8381

        “Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) issued its weekly spending cut alert aimed at the federal government’s peanut subsidy. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), commodity programs such peanut subsidies, are expected to cost taxpayers $51 billion over the next ten years. Eliminating peanut subsidies, which is among the recommendations advocated in CAGW’s Prime Cuts database, would save taxpayers $55 million in one year and $275 million over five years.”

        http://www.cagw.org/newsroom/releases/2011/cagw-issues-weekly-spending-3.html

        “the 45-cents-per-gallon ethanol tax credit doled out to blenders of this unnecessary and inefficient gasoline additive that costs taxpayers $5.7 billion a year.
        With only 68 percent of the energy content of gasoline, ethanol does nothing to improve fuel efficiency or make cars run better.”

        http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/10/end-ethanol-subsidies/

        Under the rum cover-over program, the federal government imposes a $13.50 excise tax on each gallon of rum produced in a U.S. territory and sold in the U.S. The federal government returns more than 98% of the revenue it collects from this excise tax to rum-producing territories (like the U.S. Virgin Islands) as economic aid — and there are virtually no strings attached to how that money is spent. Recently, this program has become an even more outrageous corporate welfare scheme designed to line the pockets of foreign companies at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

        Earlier this year, the Obama administration confirmed a new loophole in the program that not only increases the program’s cost from $700 million a year to nearly $2 billion a year but also puts in jeopardy the jobs and competitiveness of corn growers and distilleries throughout the Midwest.

        In 2008, the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) entered a 30-year agreement (renewable for up to 60 years) with the British alcohol firm Diageo. In return for relocating its rum production facility to the USVI island of St. Croix, Diageo will receive almost half of the Virgin Islands’ rum tax money, a 90 percent income tax break, and a property tax exemption. The government will also build Diageo a new state-of-the-art distillery and guarantee — subsidize — sugar prices (sugar is a key ingredient in rum) for the next 60 years. The deal could be worth well over $6 billion to Diageo.

        http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/17/why-is-congress-subsidizing-foreign-rum-producers/#ixzz1XYLncs2d

        The Comptroller’s office estimates that the total amount of federal energy subsidies for 2006 was $13.6 billion. Ethanol had the largest share, at $4.7 billion, or 34.6 percent of total subsidies.

        http://www.window.state.tx.us/specialrpt/energy/subsidies/

        “General Electric CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt is super-close to President Obama. The president named Immelt chairman of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Before that, Immelt was on Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He’s a regular companion when Obama travels abroad to hawk American exports. (Why does business need government to do that?) Jeff Immelt is perhaps the CEO who is most cozy with President Obama,” says journalist Tim Carney. “General Electric is structuring their business around where government is going … high-speed rail, solar, wind. GE is lining up to get what government is handing out.”

        http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/03/23/corporate_welfare_109316.html

        The federal government spent $92 billion in direct and indirect subsidies to businesses and private- sector corporate entities — expenditures commonly referred to as “corporate welfare” — in fiscal year 2006. The definition of business subsidies used in this report is broader than that used by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, which recently put the costs of direct business subsidies at $57 billion in 2005. For the purposes of this study, “corporate welfare” is defined as any federal spending program that provides payments or unique benefits and advantages to specific companies or industries.

        http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8230

        The northeastern Republican establishment is still cartelizing, controlling, regulating, handing out contracts to business favorites, and bailing out beloved crooks and losers. It is still playing the old “partnership” game–and still, of course, at our expense.

        http://mises.org/resources.aspx?Id=6348753f-8baa-4af3-b5d7-ef7b8a030fb7

        Weirddave in reply to retire05. | September 10, 2011 at 9:28 am

        Hey Retire, you OK? This Palin thread was up for more than a day before you came in here to bash her, that’s at least 23 1/2 hours slower than normal, you been sick or something?

        I think you missed the train on this one. Listen to her speech in Iowa very carefully.

“Sarah Palin…strongly supports the ideas of Hyde Park economist Luigi Zingales in America By Heart, her second book.

Palin cites Zingales, a University of Chicago Booth School of Business professor, as a champion of the type of free market principles she supports.

“Professor Zingales makes the crucial point that there is a difference between being pro-market and being pro-business,” Palin writes. “Both political parties are at fault in failing to acknowledge this distinction.”

Zingales said Tuesday, when Palin’s book debuted, that she had accurately captured his theory.

“I’m impressed that she knows me because I’m not sort of a national figure and somebody on the front page of magazines all the time,” he said. “Not only that she knows my name but she seems to have gotten my ideas right seems remarkable.”

Zingales had no idea he would be mentioned and quoted in the book, which follows Palin’s best-selling Going Rogue.

“I sort of am about ideas, not making money out of ideas,” he said. “If that promotes my idea I’m happy. . . . When you are an academic you spend most of your time writing to change the world and nobody notices.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Capitalism_from_the_Capitalists

When any of my progressive/liberal friends begin ragging on Palin, I love goading them by saying, “I AM SARAH!”

Oh, I almost forgot – Nice post Professor.

Corporate welfare: (this is old, which makes the issue even more scary, because it’s become far worse): http://www.corporations.org/welfare/

An example: federal funding of drug and other research. No benefit comes back to the taxpayer in the way of price breaks (not even for access to the research data.) In fact, American companies may even sell the products abroad for less than Americans are charged. The public collectively is not providing either a loan or an equity infusion, but a gift. Why. Private companies receiving such funding may turn all of it into private profit. This is not “capitalism”. It’s theft. Welfare. Taking from the public for private benefit. E.g. the federal government funded the research of Bristol-Meyers Squibb to develop Taxol, an anti-cancer drug. After developing Taxol, the corporation sold it at 2000% the manufacturing cost.

Here’s another example, a dinosaur, never removed from the books: The Mining Act of 1872, intended to encourage development of natural resources. Not only American, but also foreign corporations basically can take public land for their own profit. E.g., in 1the 90s, American Barrick (a Canadian company), glommed hundreds of acres of public land in containing large gold reserves in Nevada, paying taxpayers less than $10,000.

Another: ball stadiums for sports teams. No, they don’t bring in business and jobs to the jurisdiction in question that warrants the giveaway, which goes to private profit.

More: giving away valuable contracts to public infrastructure, such as roads. In the short term, public property is essentially sold or rented for a period of time to private industry in return for a cash infusion. Toll roads are a biggie. (This is typical Republican corporate cronyism, sometimes done to obscure budget problems following tax cuts without comparable spending cuts.) Any deal that is not balanced and concocted behind the scenes like this, often to benefit campaign supporters, is, essentially part-gift.

Farm subsidies. Once upon a time, family farms may have needed help, but now taxpayer money goes to corporations, often subsidiaries of conglomerates, that have swallowed up the little guys.

And just what were the recent bailouts about.

    retire05 in reply to janitor. | September 10, 2011 at 9:04 am

    You bring up some valid points. I am not a supporter of bailouts for private companies. Didn’t like it when the taxpayer bailed out the airlines, didn’t like it when the taxpayer bailed out failing banks and car companies. Had GM been allowed to go into standard bankruptcy, they would not have gone under. They would have been managed by a bankruptcy court which would have forced them to reorganize and get their act together. The only people who benefitted from the GM/Chrysler bailouts were the unions while secured bond holders got the shaft.

    I also don’t support grants for drug research. Another area that the free market should be allowed to flourish or fail on its own.

    But you are wrong about stadiums. Those are generally paid for by the citizens passing local bonds, and they do create jobs with the businesses that support the area; hotels, restraurants, shops, etc. The building of stadiums is a local, not a federal issue.

    Toll roads are also a local issue. Tolls roads have been in place in Oklahoma since 1947, when the state did not have the money to build roads. Same in the City of Houston, that built a toll road all around a large city. Those roads were said to be donnybrooks, but now they pay for the own maintainence and are not a tax burden to the citizens of Oklahoma or Houston, yet, they are well kept roads.

    I also don’t support farm subsidities. It is a system that is abused in many cases.

    There are a lot of things that came out of the New Deal that needs to be reevaluated. But that is up to Congress, not the President to do. The CBO recently did a report on the duplicity between agencies. As taxpayers, that is one place we need to start demanding the budget be cut.

Sarah Palin: A voice of one crying in the wilderness – a wilderness created by the Ruling class closing the gates of the city to the Country class.

When Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter went on their “nasty girls” attack on Sarah Palin this week, they talked about everything except her message in Iowa.

The “permanent political class’ goes far beyond politicians. It also includes bureaucrats and even so-called “conservative poundits” like Ingraham, Coulter, Will and Krathammer who are more interested in being respected members of the “Beltway crowd” and selling books than they are in fighting for conservative principles.

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