Recently, far reaching wrongdoings have been uncovered among Wall Street firms, and although less publicized, considerable mismanagement and corruption have also been documented with respect to many federal government programs. People being people, countless private and public sector abuses have occurred in the past, are occurring now, and will occur in the future. We the people have sought to restrain such misdeeds by application of the rule of law. However, regardless of the literal integrity of corporate or governmental regulations, these statutes can and will be violated or circumvented by the unscrupulous. Ultimately, the breadth of the fallout can only be constrained by limiting the scope of the power wielded.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. To suppose that this applies only to private corporations and not to government is naïve. Before their downfall, the Wall Street firms Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch had annual revenues of about $63 billion and $71 billion, respectively. And the “too big to fail” AIG had annual revenues of about $110 billion at the time it was bailed out by the government. But these figures pale in comparison to the major components of the President’s proposed 2012 federal budget. Spending for Medicare is projected to total $476 billion and Medicaid $269 billion. Even smaller budget components such as Food and Nutrition and Housing Assistance have proposed annual funding amounts in excess of $100 billion each. The infamous QE1 and QE2 programs together totaled over $2 trillion and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was funded for over $500 billion. These and other federal government programs are so immense that they render effectual oversight infeasible and so virtually invite waste and corruption.
The great wielder and purveyor of power is government -- the largest monopoly of all time. The bailouts of AIG and others were not designed and instituted by capitalists, but by government. This was not the workings of the capitalist system, but of what is known as “crony capitalism.” That is, capitalist firms receiving financial handouts and special privileges from government, financed by tax payers. The current administration is the greatest ever contributor to crony capitalism. While a true capitalist would say “let them fail,” the current administration dolled out billions to assist banks and major corporations such as AIG and GM.
Those that look to government as the solution to abuses of power are calling for the fox to guard the henhouse. It is always in government’s self-interest to grow itself and thereby continually extend its power base – most often under the guise of promoting “the general welfare.” The only effective means for restraining abuses of vast power and scope is to limit their reach. Only we the people have the ability to constrain the reach of government by electing representatives that have a contrary mindset, and that have the courage to act boldly to give federal government a much needed, major downsizing.
Unfortunately, with half of U.S.
