boneyard bill
Veteran Member
While the mainstream media, wrong as usual, focused on immigration as the big issue that produced the defeat of Eric Cantor, a quick look at David Brat's stump speech would make it clear that that is not the case. The primary issue against Cantor was that he was a big proponent of government hand-outs to big business. Even when he mentioned immigration, it was in the context of Cantor complying with big business' desires to lower wages. Now the Beast has discerned a national trend:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/12/big-business-vs-libertarians-in-the-gop.html
"A Washington business consultant has moved to northern California to challenge anti-earmarks Rep. Tom McClintock, because he “thinks representatives should deliver for folks back home,” in the words of a local reporter.
And that’s just it. It isn’t gay marriage or foreign policy that seems to annoy big and politically connected businesses. They just object that libertarian legislators don’t play the game, don’t bring home the bacon, and actually take seriously the limited government ideas that most Republicans only pay lip service to."
" In an interview with the Weekly Standard, Ellis strikingly dismissed Amash’s principled, constitutional stand: “He’s got his explanations for why he’s voted, but I don’t really care. I’m a businessman, I look at the bottom line. If something is unconstitutional, we have a court system that looks at that.”
Most members of Congress vote for unconstitutional bills. Few of them make it an explicit campaign promise.
As with all these libertarian-leaning officials, Amash has friends as well as enemies among the business community. Several members of Amway’s DeVos and Van Andel families have contributed to his re-election, and he remains popular with national free-market groups.
“He’s the gold standard of principled constitutionalism in Congress,” Dean Clancy, then vice president of public policy at FreedomWorks, told The Hill newspaper. “We have heard that the K Street establishment wants to knock him off — and we intend to defend him punch-for-punch.” "
"
This clash between politically minded businessmen and free-market libertarians is an old one. Adam Smith wrote “The Wealth of Nations” to denounce mercantilism, the crony capitalism of his day. Milton Friedman wrote, “There’s a common misconception that people who are in favor of a free market are also in favor of everything that big business does. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
T. J. Rodgers, the outspoken CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, worries about the corrupting interplay between business and the Republican establishment: “The political scene in Washington is antithetical to the core values that drive our success in the international marketplace and risks converting entrepreneurs into statist businessmen….Republicans claim that their party stands for free markets, but they have proven [in the Bush years] to be as big spenders as are the Democrats.”
That’s what the liberty movement is trying to change, and business leaders who try to purge libertarian-minded office holders just confirm their suspicions. "
I should like to point out that incumbent Democrats are just as vulnerable to charges of crony capitalism as Republicans are, perhaps even more so. So while Democrats have had a field day accusing Republicans of "tax cuts for the rich," they may find themselves rather embarrassed when they use that argument against a libertarian Republican who points out that that same Democrat voted to give tons on money to big businesses that they insist that we should tax.
Currently the Chamber of Commerce, the loudest voice for big business, is going after people like Justin Amash, Tom McClintock, and others but the number of liberty Congressmen has been growing, and while Rand Paul hasn't made crony capitalism the dominant theme of his campaign in quite the way that David Brat has, he has shown himself willing to mention it in most of his speeches. If it catches on, expect other GOP candidates to follow suit.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/12/big-business-vs-libertarians-in-the-gop.html
"A Washington business consultant has moved to northern California to challenge anti-earmarks Rep. Tom McClintock, because he “thinks representatives should deliver for folks back home,” in the words of a local reporter.
And that’s just it. It isn’t gay marriage or foreign policy that seems to annoy big and politically connected businesses. They just object that libertarian legislators don’t play the game, don’t bring home the bacon, and actually take seriously the limited government ideas that most Republicans only pay lip service to."
" In an interview with the Weekly Standard, Ellis strikingly dismissed Amash’s principled, constitutional stand: “He’s got his explanations for why he’s voted, but I don’t really care. I’m a businessman, I look at the bottom line. If something is unconstitutional, we have a court system that looks at that.”
Most members of Congress vote for unconstitutional bills. Few of them make it an explicit campaign promise.
As with all these libertarian-leaning officials, Amash has friends as well as enemies among the business community. Several members of Amway’s DeVos and Van Andel families have contributed to his re-election, and he remains popular with national free-market groups.
“He’s the gold standard of principled constitutionalism in Congress,” Dean Clancy, then vice president of public policy at FreedomWorks, told The Hill newspaper. “We have heard that the K Street establishment wants to knock him off — and we intend to defend him punch-for-punch.” "
"
This clash between politically minded businessmen and free-market libertarians is an old one. Adam Smith wrote “The Wealth of Nations” to denounce mercantilism, the crony capitalism of his day. Milton Friedman wrote, “There’s a common misconception that people who are in favor of a free market are also in favor of everything that big business does. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
T. J. Rodgers, the outspoken CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, worries about the corrupting interplay between business and the Republican establishment: “The political scene in Washington is antithetical to the core values that drive our success in the international marketplace and risks converting entrepreneurs into statist businessmen….Republicans claim that their party stands for free markets, but they have proven [in the Bush years] to be as big spenders as are the Democrats.”
That’s what the liberty movement is trying to change, and business leaders who try to purge libertarian-minded office holders just confirm their suspicions. "
I should like to point out that incumbent Democrats are just as vulnerable to charges of crony capitalism as Republicans are, perhaps even more so. So while Democrats have had a field day accusing Republicans of "tax cuts for the rich," they may find themselves rather embarrassed when they use that argument against a libertarian Republican who points out that that same Democrat voted to give tons on money to big businesses that they insist that we should tax.
Currently the Chamber of Commerce, the loudest voice for big business, is going after people like Justin Amash, Tom McClintock, and others but the number of liberty Congressmen has been growing, and while Rand Paul hasn't made crony capitalism the dominant theme of his campaign in quite the way that David Brat has, he has shown himself willing to mention it in most of his speeches. If it catches on, expect other GOP candidates to follow suit.
