A Quote by Michael Barone
Punishing enemies and rewarding friends - politics Chicago style - seems to be the unifying principle that helps explain the Obamacare waivers, the NLRB action against Boeing and IRS's gift tax assault on 501(c)(4) donors. They look like examples of crony capitalism, bailout favoritism and gangster government. One thing they don't look like is the rule of law.
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Congress created tax-exempt 501(c)(4)s to operate exclusively for social welfare purposes like early childhood education, environmental protection, and veteran's assistance. However, an IRS regulation allows 501(c)(4)s to operate primarily for the promotion of social welfare.
If nothing else came out of all of this debacle over Obamacare, one thing that should is a class-action lawsuit against the University of Chicago Law School for people that had Obama as their constitutional law professor.
Those on the downside of rising economic inequality generally do not want government policies that look like handouts. They typically do not want the government to make the tax system more progressive, to impose punishing taxes on the rich, in order to give the money to them. Redistribution feels demeaning. It feels like being labeled a failure.
Crony capitalism on the left and crony capitalism on the right are still crony capitalism.
We do not have free market capitalism in America; we have crony capitalism. There is a huge difference between free market capitalism that democratizes a country and makes us more efficient and prosperous and corporate crony capitalism.
A general charge of crony capitalism is easy to make. But dividing the 'bad' crony capitalists from the 'good' innovative entrepreneurs is much harder to do. And sorting them out without creating a new group of crony capitalists may be the hardest thing of all.
What I don't like is when people don't like the establishment, they don't like the current government, they combat that by saying 'I don't like politics.' Go out, have your say, vote against the government. It's the most important thing.
The truth is, Hillary Clinton's ideas create more income inequality. Why? Because bigger government creates crony capitalism. When you have a 70,000 page tax code, you've got to be very wealthy, very powerful, very well connected to dig your way through that tax code.
Before we start making blanket statements about abolishing the IRS, I think it's important to focus on what the tax code for the 21st century should look like.
The kind of capitalism I hate most is crony capitalism, the friends who decide. These are things which should be killed in Russia.
The journey to limit crony capitalism: It's a journey, it's not a destination. Slowly but surely, in India, crony capitalism has died and governance is what brings about real growth.
Anyone concerned with the broken politics in Washington needs to look no further than Mitch McConnell's cynical manipulation of the rules and obstruction of the NLRB.
Undermining the rule of law is an assault on the government of the United States.
People like leaders who look like they are dominant, optimistic, friendly to their friends, and quick on the trigger when it comes to enemies. They like boldness and despise the appearance of timidity and protracted doubt.
What I'm saying is, 'Look, life is a long thing, and I don't need enemies. I need friends just like Donald Trump.'
Capitalism is like this fractal thing where anything that contains an element of capitalism anywhere inside it is just something that turns into capitalism. It is an incredibly defeatist attitude. If you choose to look at reality that way, I suppose you can, but you have to do enormous violence to reality to do so consistently.
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