South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg came back to CNN for the recent round of Democrat presidential town halls.
During his Q and A with the audience, one attendee asked Buttigieg (also known amongst his fan base as “Mayor Pete”) what he would do as president to reduce the role of money and corporate control over politics.
Mayor Pete did identify that money in politics turns politicians into game dealers as corporations attempt to buy and sell regulatory influence in order to keep their stockholders happy and their bought-off politicians in power.
Mayor Pete is accurate in his assessment of what libertarians refer to as “crony capitalism,” but his proposals involve more laws, regulations, and bigger government. What Mayor Pete either doesn’t understand – or doesn’t care about – is the fact that the bigger the government’s reach and authority is, the more crony capitalists want to buy off the same lawmakers who are supposed to look out for the general interest of all Americans – not just billionaires, and big corporations.
The libertarian solution to divorcing big government from big business might sound simple but it is anything but. In order to decrease or essentially kill the incentive to throw money into politics as a way of influencing the government, we need to drastically reduce or eliminate the portions of control over our lives that big businesses and crony capitalists want sway over.
Whether it is appointing crony friendly regulators to federal agencies, or providing enough donations to as many candidates needed to pass a bill to bail out big banks, by downsizing the size and scope of government we are downsizing the opportunity for greed and corruption to damage our democratic institutions.
What Mayor Pete needs to understand is that the issue to government problems isn’t bigger government, that is what all crony capitalists want because they know that anyone can be bought if the price is right in the world of slinging influence and control over the masses of taxpayers that have to pray that hopefully their congressman and their senator will listen to their voters instead of just their donors.
When in doubt, just remember where government fails, freedom works and the same principle applies to corporate cronies that attempt to use government as a means of controlling.
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