Minneapolis – They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but this week I have sure been enjoying lots of Summit India Pale Ale, fried walleye and all kinds of tasty nourishment at events surrounding the Republican National Convention, without paying for any of it.
The same was true in Denver last week. Of course, none of this was “free.” My free food and drink — which paled in comparison to wining and dining enjoyed by the politicians and policymakers here — were the wages of a government that has far outgrown the power and influence our founders intended.
The less-savory fruits are high taxes, often oppressive regulations, and a lobbying game that invites graft, corruption and abuse of power. That’s why we see corporate sponsors all over both of these conventions.
To paraphrase the famous quotation attributed to three different presidents, our federal government is now powerful enough to give corporations everything they need, and powerful enough to take away everything they have. By amassing this power, politicians have induced corporate America to come begging, for protection and for favors. The list of the corporate sponsors of the GOP convention includes some of America’s titans of corporate welfare, some experts at regulatory robber-baronry and some growing companies afraid of what government could do to them.
Start with Xcel Energy, whose name graces the arena hosting the convention, and whom the convention host committee lists as a top sponsor. When my bus driver took a wrong turn in downtown Minneapolis, all the delegates and I got to see something extraordinary — a giant white blade on the trailer of a truck. It was the blade of a wind turbine, on display courtesy of Xcel energy.
Xcel is hyping wind power to the convention’s attendees not in search of investors, but in search of subsidies. “We’re trying to take as much advantage of the fact that [the convention is] in the Twin Cities as we can,” Xcel Chief Executive Officer Dave Sparby told the Dow Jones newswire. Specifically, this is a leg of Xcel’s lobbying campaign.
In Washington, Xcel reaches lawmakers by hiring 10 lobbying firms, lobbying on climate change legislation and pushing hard to extend the federal credit for windmills. Also, Xcel labors under state regulations requiring them to get 30 percent of their power from renewable resources. As you can see, Xcel Energy needs the favor of politicians more than it needs the favor of customers — not through its own fault, but because of the ever-increasing role of state and federal governments in the energy industry. In its dependence on government, the company is like most of the other sponsors of the host committee.
Drugmakers Merck, Pfizer and Astra-Zeneca, all top sponsors of the convention, are inextricably intertwined with government — navigating the shifting, perilous waters of patent protection and Food and Drug Administration approval, pocketing billions in research grants, and even — in the case of Merck’s drug Gardasil — lobbying state governments to mandate their product.
And of course, Archer Daniels Midland, perhaps the nation’s king of corporate welfare, is a top sponsor of the convention in its home state. ADM thrives on ethanol subsidies and the corn syrup market that exists mostly thanks to federal sugar policies.
Interestingly, all the new competition in the ethanol industry — spurred by state and federal subsidies — has hit ADM’s profits hard. Now that politicians, worrying about the sustainability of ethanol, are talking about replacing the corn-based fuel with other “renewable” sources, ADM’s stock has hit 52-week lows.
Republican speakers on the podium make vague promises about promoting “renewable energy.” Which “renewable” will get the subsidies or the mandates? With that question up for grabs, energy and agricultural companies can’t afford not to lobby.
Government has inserted itself deeply into the business of America. Business, in return, has cozied up to politicians. The result: paid-for wining and dining at conventions and wherever else politicians gather. It’s not a free lunch — we’re all paying for it.
Examiner Columnist Timothy P. Carney is editor of the Evans-Novak Political Report. His Examiner column appears on Fridays.
