Obama inaugural and what it really represents

By John Watts

It is predicted that somewhere in the neighborhood of 800,000 people will be attending the second inauguration of President Obama today.

Few of the attendees, however, will be cognizant of what they are really in effect celebrating: the apex of crony capitalism and official hypocrisy.

As the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney pointed out Obama’s inaugural is being primarily funded by large corporations who either have benefited, or stand to benefit, from Obama’s policies.

These corporate beneficiaries of Obama’s forced public munificence include Microsoft, AT & T, Southern Co., Genentech, and Centene. According to the article, Microsoft alone has $852 million in federal contracts; it should then be no surprise that Microsoft employees and executives were big supporters of Obama’s re-election. Southern Co. is mostly interested in obtaining the loan guarantees for nuclear power plants that Obama supports, while the latter two corporations have large stakes in Obamacare.

Some may find it is odd that large corporations seeking subsidies and other special privileges from the federal government would underwrite the inaugural celebrations of an anti-free-market President as Barack Obama is supposedly opposed to big businesses. But history shows that the government interventions in the market are usually, if not always, beneficial to those privileged with access to Congress and the executive. Unsurprisingly these are large corporations who have captured the regulatory agencies, dominate congressional lobbying and whose management and executives have incestual ties with the federal bureaucracies.

But again, if one is to point this out publicly, they run the risk of an establishment-led public rebuke. Take the case of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who recently made the rather pedestrian observation that Obamacare meets the technical definition of fascism – a system where, while the nominal ownership of business remains in private hands the government actually controls the business. After all, the Affordable Care Act forces individuals to purchase a product from a corporation, and directs what type of health care benefits private employers must offer their employees.

But alas, subtleties like the distinction between crony capitalism and an unfettered free market are lost on the average inaugural attendee. It is not a great mystery why so many would be in the dark, they have been force fed the progressive mythos of governmental benignity by government schools and mass media.

Fortunately, in large part thanks to the efforts of Campaign for Liberty Chairman Ron Paul, more and more Americans are coming to understand the difference between a true free-market and crony capitalism. Campaign for Liberty will continue to work to end all privileges for big business and restore a true free-market.