John Hawkins presents 7 Reasons Liberal Economic Policies Don't Work. He's exactly correct on all seven counts -- read them all -- but I'd like to look a little closer at number 6: Liberals cause businesses to focus on government instead of the product.
In Ayn Rand's classic Atlas ShruggedTrue. And it's gets worse. Think of The Homer car as an example of government running private enterprises. You'll recall that in The Simpson's episode, Homer was given free reign to design a car ("The Car Built For Homer") and the company had no choice but to obey his every whim. Each feature he wanted came with its own logic: Three horns that play "La Cucaracha" (because "you can never find a horn when you're mad") and a separate bubble dome for the kids (duh)., Hank Rearden's company could outperform his competitors, but they were still able to hamstring him using their allies in government. That's the environment liberals encourage today and it's why we're spending increasingly larger sums on elections. For many businesses, lobbying and greasing palms in D.C. has become just as important as their performance. Chrysler, Solyndra, Bank of America, Citigroup, and (A.I.G.) among many, many others could tell you all about that.
Homer could care less how each of his features affected the bottom line (the car cost $82,000 and bankrupted Powell Motors). Government czars and bureaucrats overseeing what should be private companies could care less either. They have constituencies to please and pet projects to support.
The next thing you know, a thousand little Homer Simpsons in the government are designing $50 light bulbs and patting themselves on the back for how "affordable" they are. No really.
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