Politicians too often confuse “free money” with “free markets”—that is, they consider themselves pro-business when they work deals that make some businesses happy, even though it usually comes at the expense of the overall economy. So it should be no surprise that President Obama claimed in a Morning Joe interview that he would appoint a Secretary of Business in a second term.
If he truly understood what has been keeping businesses from creating more new jobs, he would task this new Secretary with eliminating red tape, cutting the most burdensome and useless regulations, opening access to the resources we already have, and stopping his own President from pushing for higher taxes.
Instead, the only problem the President came up with was that with nine departments, the process for distributing small business loans and export subsidies was too complex.
Got it? It’s too hard for the government to give money away with all these different departments. Why not just have one for doling out the cash to businesses?
Was it too hard for Solyndra to get the half-billion dollars it took from taxpayers—a half-billion the taxpayers will never get back? Was it too hard for A123 to qualify for a $250 million loan from the government—$130 million of which it used up before declaring bankruptcy? Was it too hard for Goldman Sachs to figure out Wall Street? Should there have been an easier way to get it the $90 million guaranteed loan for its subsidiary Cogentrix of Alamosa?
For those who believe that it is already too easy for crony capitalists to get their hands on hard-earned taxpayer dollars, creating a Secretary of Subsidies is the wrong way to go.