Are Big Business and Big Government enemies? According to journalist and author Tim Carney, that story is a myth. Both Republicans and Democrats bilk taxpayers to benefit their corporate allies and K Street lobbyists, whether the issue is health care reform, climate change, or defense spending.
The Obama administration's bailouts and "stimulus" package(s) have taken the taxpayer-bilking to historic levels -- a remarkable achievement, considering the previous administration. And at the same time the president promises his health care overhaul will put patients first, the legislation he supports has corporate lobbyists once again lined up at the trough.
Bio
Michael F. Cannon
Michael F. Cannon is the Cato Institute's director of health policy studies. Previously, he served as a domestic policy analyst at the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee under Senator Larry E. Craig (R-ID), where he advised the Senate leadership on health, education, labor, welfare, and Second Amendment policy.
In addition, Cannon has worked as a health care policy analyst for Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation in Washington, D.C. Cannon has appeared on CNN, CNBC, C-SPAN, Fox News Channel, and NPR. His articles have been featured in USA Today, the New York Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Most recently, Cannon coauthored the book Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.
Timothy P. Carney
Tim Carney, CEI's Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow, is the author of The BIG Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money (Wiley, 2006).
He was a 2004-2005 Phillips Foundation Journalism fellow, and before that he was a political reporter for Bob Novak and Assistant Editor at Human Events. He is a columnist for America's Future Foundation's webzine Brainwash, and is a contributing editor to Human Events.
Ross Douthat
Ross Douthat is an associate editor at The Atlantic and the author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class (Hyperion, 2005), and The Party of Sam's Club, with Reihan Salam, which is forthcoming in 2008 from Doubleday.
He is the film critic for National Review, and he writes frequently on domestic policy, national politics, pop culture and religion.
Uwe Reinhardt
Uwe Reinhardt is James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs. Recognized as one of the nation's leading authorities on health care economics, Reinhardt has been a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences since 1978.
He is a past president of the Association of Health Services Research. From 1986 to 1995 he served as a commissioner on the Physician Payment Review Committee, established in 1986 by Congress to advise it on issues related to the payment of physicians. He is a senior associate of the Judge Institute for Management of Cambridge University, UK, and a trustee of Duke University, and the Duke University Health System. Reinhardt is or was a member of numerous editorial boards, among them the Journal of Health Economics, the Milbank Memorial Quarterly, Health Affairs, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of the American Medical Association.
(born Aug. 4, 1961, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.) 44th president of the U.S. (2009– ). Obama graduated from Columbia University (1983) and Harvard Law School (1991), where he was the first African American to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review. He moved to Chicago, where he served as a community organizer and lectured in constitutional law at the University of Chicago before he was elected (1996) to the Illinois Senate as a member of the Democratic Party. In 2004 he was elected to the U.S. Senate and quickly became a major national political figure. In 2008 Obama won an upset victory over former U.S. first ladyHillary Clinton to become the Democratic presidential nominee. He easily defeated Republican candidate John McCain and became the first African American president. In 2009 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
There is a way between socialism and libertarianism, it's extending democracy to the economic realm, it's a simple but potent measure because face it, big companies are as corrupted as big government. It would be truly a free market. Of course this wouldn't solve the ecological problem, so you'd still need some kind op paternalistic system to save the ecosystem, but on a global scale.
Is Obama bankrupting America? You right-wing idiots never seem to sniff your own dirty underwear do you?
1. Saint Reagan and George W. Bush out spent every President before them. U.S. national debt SOARED with Reagan's giveaways to the rich and his borrowing to fund his military fantasies. Bush knocked the debt out of the park with HIS borrowing from the Chinese funding goddamned stupid useless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What's up conswervatives? Is it that you just don't like it when the national debt is kicked up by someone with a D after their name? Huh? Is that it? Obama is doing anything you right-wing whores haven't done for decades. I hope he does bankrupt this worthless country. It would teach the American people what Republican right-wing policy is all about: BIG spending ... except when it comes to spending for any program that would actually benefit the the American people as a whole.
You people are complete whores. There is no other word for you. Whores. W-H-O-R-R-E-S. Suck on it.
I consider myself to be liberal, but I found myself agreeing with almost all of the views the speakers expressed in the video.
The title is a bit misleading because there is no mention of "bankrupting," and as the speakers repeatedly pointed out: the problems of having special interest corporate lobbying and deal making with government are pervasive with either prominent American party in power. One speaker specifically pointed out that the ad hominem within the title is not productive. Near the end, there was actually a thoughtful, constructive discussion on implementing health care reform, most specifically a single payer health care system.
Criticism seemed to fall heavily and equally on both sides of the aisle. 'Conservative'(in the Pro-Republican sense of the word) snipes were minimal.
The themes of the discourse were that:
1. Legislators being lobbied is a major problem because it leads to deals with legislation that benefit the lobbying organizations.
2. Big business loves government programs because they can often negotiate a highly beneficial deals, and many types of regulation are anti-competitive to smaller business.
It's a shame that the title is so sensationalist in a way that endears it to 'teabaggers' while making 'old punk rockers' like me automatically file under tenuously-scientific quasi-religious dreck.
I was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed this video.
i agree and i am a socialist. i wish all discussion could be like this one. i also dont agree with the cato people on anything but i very much enjoyed this debate. they are right and most liberals agree with them, corporations have to much power lets work together on this issue and we will all win in the end.
Every "global problem" begins somewhere and should be solved there.
Government MUST be constrained. No person or group of persons is capable of managing more than a few necessary functions for a state. The political class and their cohortsd in the intelligentsia will never accept this. They have the view, "We can save the world if you will just let us!" Every new law chips away at our liberty, whether we get a perceived or tangible "benefit" at our neighbor's expense. Edmund Burke said, "The purpose of the state is to govern those incapable of governing themselves." So simple. So beautiful. The question is, do we have the courage, character and desire to remain free, or will we happily continue to trade in our liberty for largess from our neighbors' hard work?
Where does Warren Buffet get his ready cash? His insurance company Geico. To quote "Insurance companies are the piggie banks of the elite". I don't think they have anything to do with health. I think this is just another smoke screen.
These comments seem to apply to (any!) government. Not big government. Should there be ANY government? Is scale the problem? What about global problems?
Furthermore, it seems to be applicable to just about all forms of governments including all sorts of political groupings (people who identify themselves as part of an entity with interests). Do we put limits on them? And who or what is 'we'?
Business corporations, of course, are not the only special interest groups corrupting both politics and the marketplace.
Unions are at the fore. K-12 ed is an enormous funnel of economic rents in addition to its infringement on parental and student liberty.
Throw in the UAW, the professional unions (ABA, AMA) and we've got a deck that stacked against individuals as taxpayers, consumers, workers and, of course, voters.
Good comments and not at all awkward. Our Constitution in the United States was designed to protect the rights of individual CITIZENS only, not for corporations or businesses. It spells out the boundaries for action and influence of the three equal branches of our government in the lives of American citizens.
"Corporation" is simply a word - a fiction - used to describe a group of people who pool their money to fund an enterprise as well as the people it hires to manage the enterprise, to protect and grow the assets invested and to earn profits or achieve other goals if the corporation is not for profit. If the Government decides to intervene in the market, shouldn't the owners of the corporation have someone to represent their interests and assets? For example, if I am a shareholder of Starbucks and the Federal Government is proposing a large tax on coffee beans or is considering a regulation purely to confiscate a portion of Starbucks profits to be given to others, I want to be certain that someone is representing my interests as owner of the company so that my investment is protected. This is not corrupt, it is prudent. If the governmemt stayed out of the operation of my corporation, I have no need to lobby them. If they choose to legislate advantages to my competitor unjustly for political or other reasons, I MUST defend my investment.
I also agree that the real crux of many issues is glossed over through political correctness or effort to be courteous. The result is, the great issues are never tackled, much less solved. We get incremental, inneffective, expensive actions that never solve propblems and infringe on both individual liberty as well as the free operation of the market.
To be honest, I'm not for any party as I don't really see one better than other in matter of corruption or leading business and that everywhere in the world. Furthermore, I thought interesting one speech by one in the audience that "both lobbying and corporation have disminished both the legislative and executive branch of power" that it's a big problem for any governemnts that somehow America will have to fight. Now, in my opinion government play to often the wrong role and not its role, I think perhaps wrongly but that government should be in the role of thid party between citizens and business domestically and internationaly. Not favorising one or another, but only using its three branches to gives freedom and responsabilities to both citizens and businesses, as well as insuring that both respect their responsabilities. Hence, government should pass laws to insure that, and execute them, yet these laws should be transparant and not in favor one or another. Government other forms of interventions should be rare and only when its necessary.
For that also citizens need to be enpower, and given debate or discusion about matter, as the professor of Harvad mentioned, discusion are too polite in USA, I'm for fight and insults, respect in essential to insure freedom sure, but developing more criticism about issues to seek better solutions. Lastly I remember one show also in Fora.tv by prefessor Stiglitz and Naomi Kleim "The 3 trillon of dollar war", if I recall well, that the best for them to empower citizen was by more accountability of government to its citizens. I think that in combination of more debate and responsabilities might leed to something better. Anyway, it's only awkward thoughts.
member. 
