Crony
Capitalists Seek Protection
by
Angelo M. Codevilla
Mitch
McConnell, Senate Republican leader, confessed to big business bureaucrats that
he and other Establishment Republicans want to remain their link to government
money and favors. According to a Wall Street Journal story (December 16), he asked them to open their wallets
lest his kind be overwhelmed — not by Democrats, but by those smelly
little Tea Party conservatives — the
real threats to the government spending and regulations by which big business
thrives.
The
confession was almost that forthright: “said one person at the McConnell
fundraiser, held at a Capitol Hill townhouse. ‘The main message he was pushing
was: Get involved, mainly to teach those who are primarying incumbents that it
is not helpful to run against incumbents who are champions for the industry.’”
McConnell
is just one of the dozen Republican Establishment senators who are facing
challenges by conservatives, who are backed by organizations such as the Club
for Growth and the several pro-life organizations. These challengers, always
underfunded by huge margins, nevertheless frighten the well-heeled likes of
McConnell because they bring to politics a source of votes that money can’t
buy: credible commitment to substance. According to John Boehner, House
Republican speaker and a stalwart of that Establishment, such challengers or
merely the prospect that they might appear, have convinced many Republican
congressmen to pay more attention to issues than to the Establishment’s
priorities.
Money is
the Establishment’s main weapon against challengers with small bank accounts
but big followings based on issues. And indeed, big business is stepping up its
defense of threatened Republican Establishmentarians.
Big money
is forthcoming from classic sources for classic reasons. The Journal story continues: “The U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and other business groups have been stepping in to help
business-friendly Republicans aligned with the GOP leadership… a sign of
worries that tea party-aligned candidates might try to eliminate tax breaks and
spending favored by businesses.”
The
bargain is classic, and classically corrupt: Politicians vote taxpayer money to
cronies, who then recycle part of the money back to the politicians. The
corruption is especially evident in McConnell’s case. He made his confession
and plea to representatives of the defense industry, who told the Journal’s
reporter that their cooperation with the Establishment against the
conservatives was all about mutual support for national defense: more money
means more defense. But the corruption inherent in such back-scratching
bargains is especially obvious and noxious in the case of national defense.
Consider:
In 2013, the military budget is an inflation-adjusted $642 billion. In 1988, in
the same dollars, it was $515 billion. Yet whereas in 1988 we had an army of
twenty divisions, today we have one of ten “division equivalents” – barely able
to handle insurgents armed with improvised weapons. Back then we had a six
hundred ship navy. Now, the US Navy has 280. Today, we have half the fighter
planes of a quarter century ago, and their average age is over a quarter
century. In short, the Defense industry is taking
more taxpayer money to the bank than ever while delivering far less than half
the product.
Industry
is not nearly so much to blame for this as are the politicians that write its
orders and sign its checks. Rich corporations take money on the easiest terms,
as naturally as do poor welfare recipients. Corporate welfare, crony
capitalism, is as corrupting as any other kind of welfare. But it is more
deadly to America, especially when the cronies on both sides of the table are
dealing with military matters.
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