Anyone remember a particular campaign promise Obama made? “I’ll crack down on lobbyists once and for all so their backroom deal-making no longer drowns out the voices of the middle class and undermines our common interests as Americans.” Yeah, that one. The phrase “perception is reality” is used commonly in politics. However, in this case, Obama’s perception as being an anti-corporatist liberal doesn’t quite measure up to reality.
Obama is considered to be one of the greatest orators in the history of politics, and some regard this to be his greatest strength. The only problem is that his greatest strength could manifest itself into becoming his greatest weakness. That is, if the American people wake up and realize who he really is: a politician, not a hero.
A common myth concerning our president is that he enjoys sticking it to the big banks (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, CitiGroup, etc). What’s deceiving and honestly quite insulting to the American intellect is that Obama tends to say one thing and do another. Although, the remarkable thing about Obama is that his rhetoric paints a picture so beautifully that he rarely faces any criticisms for his obvious contradictions.
In the president’s State of the Union speech, Obama stated, “We have excluded lobbyists from policy-making jobs”. Shouldn’t the fact that he’s appointed exactly 50 former lobbyists into policy-making jobs make him the modern day Pinocchio? It seems that this man’s words are so mystifying that the mainstream media’s grasp on reality appears to go astray.
As stated earlier, Obama promised he would “crack down on lobbyists” as president. As usual though, Obama’s perception doesn’t always equal reality. During his first year as president, lobbyist donations broke records raising $3.48 billion – more than any year of the Bush administration. I guess that those enticing Benjamins may have lured Obama to break all of the extravagant promises he made to his supporters in 2008.
The financial reform debate is a perfect example of how Obama masterfully frames his positions. The president even argued that he did “not run for office to help out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.” His statement turns out to be rather humorous, considering the fact that a “fat cat banker” (Goldman Sachs) was one of the many reasons the president was inaugurated. Goldman Sachs donated close to $1M to his campaign — $996,595 — more than any other presidential candidate in the 2008 election. In fact, according to Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner, the money Obama received was “the most any politician has raised from a single company since campaign finance reform, four times what John McCain raised from Goldman, and is more than the combined Goldman Sachs total of every Republican in 2008 running for the President, House, and Senate.”
One thing is certain: Obama is loyal to his donors. Early in his presidency, Obama returned the favor by nominating former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, Mark Patterson, as the Treasury Chief of Staff.
One polarizing topic regarding financial reform is regulation. Regulation is the Democrats’ solution, and it’s become clear they enjoy boasting about their so called “tough” policies against Wall Street. As expected, Barack Obama and the Democrats have framed the opponents of the bill as corporate whores who sleep in Wall Street’s bed of gold. But the ironic truth is that often times, regulation on big industries harm the “little guy,” and put the regulators of Wall Street into their own exclusive bed of gold.
Don’t understand? It’s called crony capitalism – where big business colludes with big government. The politicians of Washington have created a system where regulation is heavily influenced by the big corporations. It’s pretty simple; multi-million dollar corporations have a considerable amount of money to spend on lobbying while the ‘mom and pop’ businesses of the world have a hard time merely balancing their own budgets. Thus, putting the big corporations on Wall Street in the drivers seat while hanging the ‘mom and pop’ businesses out to dry.
Still aren’t buying it? Let me ask you this: If JP Morgan, GE, and Exon Mobil are writing checks to our legislators in Washington, do you honestly believe any proposed regulation would help out the “little guy”? Of course not. What do big businesses want to do with their regulation? Run the small businesses out of town. The end result of many regulatory laws is quite the opposite of their intention: they kill competition. Regulation is generally imposed in such a way that it becomes difficult for any small business to afford to compete with the larger businesses.
A good example of this occurred in 2004, when Michigan legislators thought it would be a good idea to regulate used car dealerships in the name of “fairness” and “equality”. What were some of these regulations? According to author Jack McHugh, some of the regulations stated that “each dealer was required to have enough lot space for at least 10 of the type of vehicles the business is licensed to sell, and be open 30 hours per week.” By 2007, Secretary of State records proved that the regulation ran more than 850 small businesses out of operation and hampered other used car dealerships across the state of Michigan. While fairness was the “intention” of Michigan lawmakers, it appears that the consequences of the law made things worse for small businesses.
The opposite occurs when deregulation is put in place. Why? Free markets not only mean that businesses are free from government intervention, but that they are also free from government favoritism. If the government chooses not to threaten markets with regulation, the leaders of the industry are given no motivation to write Obama or any other politician a check for thousands of dollars. The fact of the matter is that deregulation forces big businesses to compete on a fair and balanced level where the free market determines the best product or service, and not a bunch of sell-out politicians.
Still have a hard time believing regulation helps big business? Let Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein’s words regarding financial reform do the talking: “The biggest beneficiary of the reform bill is Wall Street itself”.
At the end of the day, bearing in mind Obama’s close relationship with Goldman Sachs, who do you think Obama will side for? You — who wrote zero checks made out to Barack Hussein Obama? Or Goldman Sachs — the large financial institution who donated close to $1 million to his presidential campaign? You decide.
