Doonesbury Say What?

[thewayne]

"This bill is based on the premise that we believe in private, free-market capitalism to develop the resources of this land in a cost-efficient manner."
-- Rep. Joe Barton, on voting for bill giving the oil and gas industries $2.7B in tax breaks and $500M for research

Isn't capitalism supposed to be Darwinian? The fit survive, the unfit fail? That seems to be what the Republicans want, unless it's their companies that are failing, in which case they want bailouts (remember the bailouts started under Bush). So why are we giving them money? I have no problem with the government providing funds for research, but I think research money should go to educational research institutions, not private industry.

Comments

[silveradept]

You've got the right idea, but you're missing that the Private Sector is Inherently Superior in whatever it does, because the Forces of Competition ensure that no money is wasted and that they can then secure patents and copyrights on whatever they develop, so they can make even more money off of their government seed money. (And then hide it all when the government asks for the right amount of taxes.)

So anything that the government does that isn't "throw money to the private sector and reduce their taxes" is wasteful and ineffective. And of course you can trust the private market not to collude or sell people worthless things for lots of money. What are you, a Communist?