Taxpayers Beware

When politicians, giant corporations, unions, and lobbyists all collude to seize control of an entire industry, you can be sure there will be one major loser, the little people. Taxpayers beware. The fact that the health care industry is allegedly signing onto to socialized medicine means one thing, they have given up fighting for whats best, and fallen back on fighting for survival. Survival of themselves that is. The American people be damned. The industry is in full fledged surrender mode, making like sissy French collaborationists under Nazi occupation.

Hmmm where have I seen this before? I'm not thinking of "Benedict" Arlen Specter, although he was playing a game of self-preservation. We must look no further than the Wall Street and Detroit for vivid examples of entire industries selling their souls for self preservation. And the big loser in each debacle so far has been the American Taxpayer. We sunk trillions into the banking system to prop up failing institutions. We have been rewarded by mounting losses from AIG and Fannie and Freddy, yet have no idea where half the money went.

To make matters worse, Wall St. wasn't enough, so we bailed Detroit out too, despite the fact that conservatives were yelling from the rooftops that the American car companies needed to go bankrupt. But, because Obama said that the car manufacturers could not survive bankruptcy and he promised to ride in on his shiny green taxpayer purchased horse and save them, we threw billions down another black hole. Conservatives warned that we were throwing good money after bad, but nobody listened. And now to add insult to injury, after the inevitable bankruptcy (that Obama said they couldn't survive and swore he would never let happen) hascome to pass, it looks like Obama is negotiating to put Taxpayers on the hook to subsidize the bankruptcy agreements, whose only winners will be the unions, executives, and politicians who are responsible for the mess in the first place.

Like the Banking executives now wishing they they hadn't naively given Washington control over their industry, and the car executives who are no doubt beginning to come to a similar realization, the health care industry will one day find out the same thing. However, I'm not so sure that the damage of socialization can be undone too easily. Once freedom is given away, it cannot easily be taken back. Look at Social Security. Everyone knows it is a failed system, and everyone knows it going to wreak havoc on our nation when it finally goes belly up. but even as that day is barreling towards us at an ever quickening pace, nothing is being done to stop it. America is content with the false security of its indulgently self-imposed blindfold.