Donald Trump’s electoral victory confirmed what small-government conservatives have suspected and feared for some time: We are a minority of a minority of a minority.
Within the conservative coalition, those who consistently support free markets are a subset of economic conservatives, who are a subset of conservatives, who are a subset of Republicans, who remain a minority in the country as a whole.
Trump will eventually do some things that pro-market conservatives support. But his tendency, as lately revealed by the deal he and Vice President-elect Mike Pence struck with Carrier to keep 1,000 jobs in Indiana rather than shift them to Mexico, is to intervene.
This is in keeping with his election-season emphasis on working class voters, who have felt abandoned by both parties and flocked to Trump’s candidacy. They want the government to act in their behalf, not be wedded to what they consider to be some vague notion of ideological purity.
But the Carrier deal is another nail in the coffin of free markets, just as it is a victory for those who simply want to remove one band of crony capitalists from office and replace them with another more to their liking.
The New York Times says the deal is proof Trump is “willing to take on big business.” That’s nonsense. It’s proof he’s willing to use the power of the government to co-opt big business in the service of his agenda and constituencies.
Carrier isn’t doing this out of the goodness of its executives’ hearts. It’s getting something too. Just stand by while we see what Carrier’s parent company, defense contractor United Technologies, gets down the road.
The only difference between Obamanomics and Trumpanomics is who gets the goodies.
One business prospers. Some union workers keep their jobs. A community doesn’t have to go looking for something to replace a cornerstone industry.
The Carrier deal is a perfect illustration of this, and it clarifies a split that conservatives have been aware of for some time but that liberals and the mainstream media usually ignore.
Some of us are pro-market. Some are pro-business. They’re not the same thing.
Small-government conservatives tend to be pro-market.
Trump is neither pro-market nor a small-government conservative, as his actions with Carrier reveal. He is happy to use the power of the government and the moral authority of the presidency to effect change in favor of his favored constituencies.
In truth, most Republicans have operated like this for a long time, even while they were paying lip service to free-market principles. True free-market advocates have mostly booed from the sidelines and introduced amendments that went nowhere.
Now the lip-service is over, and we’re moving into an era where the executive branch, and probably an accommodating Congress, is going to dive head first into tending to the needs of business and, by extension, their working-class employees. The mostly symbolic homages to the amorphous idea of “the market” will be relegated to unsuccessful efforts to amend appropriations bills and panel discussions at the Cato Institute.
Being pro-market means removing obstacles to entrepreneurship. It means less regulation and lower taxes for all. More freedom, less government. It’s liberating, but not splashy.
Being pro-business means cutting deals with a state government to extend a tax credit so 1,000 people can keep their jobs. It yields an immediate tangible reward for an almost-invisible cost, a trade-off irresistible to most politicians. And those 1,000 people and their families benefit, at least in the short-term.
The cost?
What does Indiana say to the next 500 companies who want the same incentives? And, once it makes those deals, who is it going to tax to make up the difference?
Nobody cares because those costs are not immediate, they are largely unseen and they don’t make the nightly news.
A decade from now, when Carrier picks up and moves to Mexico anyway, will Indiana get a refund?
Oh, and your next new air conditioner will cost more. Welcome to Trumpanomics.
John Bicknell is executive editor of Watchdog.org, a nonprofit journalism project of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
