Rhetorically, President Obama prides himself on bashing “greedy corporations.” Insurance companies, the health care industry and Wall Street have all been subjected to verbal abuse from the president. Despite his statements, the Obama Administration policy often rests on corporatism – the policy of using government to enhance market share of a few favorite firms.
The record is clear — President Obama has little reservation about plying companies with tax incentives, bailout money, secured loans – even to promote off-shore oil drilling in Brazil — or policy initiatives if it fits his worldview. The president continues to tout the “success” of corporate bailouts for Wall Street and the car companies.
A classic example of corporatism is the recent news reports that Steven Westly a major contributor to the Obama campaign and a promoter of “alternative energy,” received half-billion dollars in federal aid for his venture capital firm. The Center for Public Integrity discovered that since Westly raised the money for Obama, four companies in the portfolio of The Westly Group, his venture capital firm, received $510 million in loans, grants and stimulus money from the U.S. Department of Energy. And, the report added, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, on the White House’s recommendation, appointed Westly in August to the 12-member Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board.
The sad reality is that Westly will look like a piker when Google is done ravishing the Treasury. Google has entered the political ring siding itself clearly in the left’s corner.
Google is President Obama’s favorite corporation.
He traveled to their company headquarters in 2007 to proclaim his shared vision. In turn, company executives donated over a million dollars to the Obama campaign. Since Election Day 2008, the president has returned the favor many times over.
After the election, Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s top policy executive, joined the Obama administration as deputy chief technology officer, Not surprisingly, Obama has pushed for the regulation the Internet for the first time via the so-called Net Neutrality policy. Google has begun to get a string of government contracts in areas ranging from national security to NASA. Google lobbyists were instrumental in getting Google’s purchase of the travel company ITA software approved by the Department of Justice.
On the surface, the story of Google is a confirmation that the American Dream still exists but as happens so often, the desire of easy money so often offered by a partnership with the government become more important than the desire to please its customers in the marketplace.