PHILADELPHIA — Elizabeth Warren speaks of a rigged game, but because she sees the government as the source of good things, she fails to speak of it clearly. She attributes all bad things to private action and to government inaction, never pinning the blame on government’s crooked actions.
Monday night spoke as if Washington is rigging the game through inaction, rather than through action.
It started with Warren’s exposition of her true observation that “the system is rigged.” Warren put it well when she said “Washington works great for those at the top.”
She could have given a thousand examples of Washington working well for those at the top. She could have begun with the $100 billion in direct outlays of corporate welfare in the federal budget. This includes farm subsidies that Washington gives to America’s wealthiest Americans.
On top of that is the federal ethanol mandate, whereby Washington forces drivers to put Archer Daniels Midland’s product in their gas tank, driving up prices at the pump and in the grocery store. Washington subsidizes sugar magnates like the wealthy and well-connected Fanjuls, costing taxpayers and food-shoppers billions, plus killing jobs in the candy industry.
Warren could have spoken of Big Pharma’s gifts from Washington: a ban on reimportation of drugs, rules requiring people to carry insurance plans that cover name-brand drugs, subsidies for the purchase of drugs, lengthy and arbitrary periods of monopolies on name-brand drugs, and more.
Warren could’ve spoken about the Export-Import Bank, which uses tax dollars to subsidize Boeing and JP Morgan. She could have spoken of the shipping lobby that rigs food aid programs to prioritize their profits over poverty relief.
Theoretically, she could have spoken about the K Street racket, whereby politicians cash out to K Street and Wall Street, get rich, and return to politics where they enrich their friends. It’s why six of the ten wealthiest counties are within commuting distance of the capital.
But she didn’t speak about the many, many things Washington actively does for those on top. Instead, she talked about what it isn’t doing.
Her examples:
When giant companies wanted more tax loopholes, Washington got it done. When huge energy companies wanted to tear up our environment, Washington got it done. When enormous Wall Street banks wanted new regulatory loopholes, Washington got it done. No gridlock there!
Read that second one again: “When huge energy companies wanted to tear up our environment, Washington got it done.” Wait, who tore up the environment — Washington or the energy companies?
Warren’s examples of “Washington getting things done” are all examples of Washington not doing something — not taxing, not regulating.
She showed the same thinking on social issues. She attacked Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence for wanting to “make it legal” for professional photographers to decide which weddings they are willing to photograph. You’ll see similar contortions in the Dems’ culture-war talk where they will say that employers’ refusal to provide contraception coverage is the same as blocking an employee from buying contraception.
If you don’t give someone something, you’re taking it from them. Alternatively, if you allow them to keep something, you’re giving it to them.
Elizabeth Warren’s unstated view is that government control is the default, and that liberty is something handed out by the state.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
