Big Business + Big Government Makes America the Big Loser

When discussing interest groups in my government classes, I always try to bring up the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement as an example of how interest groups and government can work together to create laws that benefit both of them. The tobacco settlement is a good example of a way that the government can try to regulate things in our society that are viewed as harmful, and many people think government should try to use this sort of an agreement as a basis for similar agreements between the government and any industry that supposedly does something harmful.

That's not my view of this agreement. I view the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement as the tobacco industry trading liability for protection, and paying money to make the government force competitors out of business. I view the TMSA as government-endorsed thuggery, the collusion between the four biggest tobacco companies and the government, setting up a marketplace much the way the mob does where the government only allows certain people to compete, and only then at a price, and in return for that price they are not responsible for the harm their products produce and do not have to worry about competition.

Go back a couple years ago and read this article from Reason Magazine called Puff, the Magic Settlement.

This just isn't old history. Today Jonah Goldberg in an article called 'Big Business' Democrats reminded me of this agreement. The TMSA is viewed as a model of success by many to emulate. They think that if you sit Big Business and Big Government down at the table together, magically Big Business will pay millions of dollars in damages and no longer cause problems. They don't realize that there was a deal made, and the deal was to screw over the American public so that both Business and Government would win.

Cap-and-trade is a similar agreement to the one the tobacco industry struck. The winners are big energy businesses, the losers are the people. In this agreement GE and other major energy companies stand to make billions from carbon pricing, thanks largely to investments in technologies that cannot survive in a free market without massive subsidies from Uncle Sam. GE chief Jeffrey Immelt cheerleads big government as "an industry policy champion, a financier and a key partner."

Healthcare is a similar agreement to the one the tobacco industry struck. The winners are big healthcare businesses, the losers are the people. The healthcare industry has mostly been trying to cut insider deals with the government, not fighting to defend the status quo, and if the healthcare bill goes forward, Big Pharma and Big Hospital will have figured out a way to transfer billions of dollars to them and keep them safe from competition, while politicians will cheer what they call 'reforms.'

The backbone of America is freedom to enter the marketplace and protection of property from unjust takings. But when Big Business and Big Government work together, the Big Loser is America.