President Barack Obama and his Democrat Congressional cohorts have spent the last three-plus years throwing legislative and regulatory anvils into, and in front of, the free market private sector.
ObamaCare on health care? Check.
Dodd-Frank on the financial sector? Check.
Blocking the Keystone Pipeline and virtually all domestic oil production? Check and check.
Punitive and destructive regulations of allthings coal? Check.
Chaotic disruption of the entire free market with $1+ trillion in government “stimulus” money being sloshed all over the place? With the only discernible distribution pattern being massive coin delivered again and again to campaign contributors, failed technologies – and campaign contributors hawking failed technologies? I.e. not picking Winners and Losers – but picking Losers at the expense of Winners? Check.
Illegal imposition of Network Neutrality on the Internet? Check.
Illegal imposition of wireless phone price controls? Check.
Outright, litigious opposition to — and theultimate blocking of — the AT&T-T-Mobile merger? Check.
Finally, begrudgingly approving — but only after incredible delay and the imposition of pages and pagesof illegal regulations (including the illegal Net Neutrality) — the Comcast-NBCU merger? Check.
Which brings us to the Wednesday, March 21 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the pending Verizon purchase of broadcast spectrum from a cable company consortium.
Why is it still pending?
After all, it was first publicly announced on December 1, 2011 – yet here we are, three-and-a-half months and counting later.
And these two willing private sector parties with a mutually agreed to private sector transaction are still being forced to play Mother-May-I with multiple branches and agencies of the federal government.
The uber-regulatory Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the Mother-May-I lead overlord. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gets to weigh in. So too does the Eric Holder Justice Department – yes, the same Eric Holder Justice Department that sued to block the AT&T-T-Mobile merger.
And the Congress too gets to take some swings. As mentioned, the Senate convenes one of these groveling/abuse sessions next Wednesday.
Some of the presiding Democrat Senators are such free market luminaries as Air America’s own-Al Franken, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein and avowed Marxist Chris Coons.
What could possibly go wrong?
It is pathetic that this many government entities and branches get to delay, beat-up and perhaps outright deny a simple private sector transaction between two (or more) willing private sector transactors.
The government is here making Losers out ofWinners – “Loser” being defined as anyone over whom the government holds sway.
And the government holds much greater sway over Tech sector entities such as these than they do over almost any other participants in the private economy.
The government has far less power to block or impede a Wal-Mart-K-Mart merger than they do an AT&T-T-Mobile merger. A dichotomy that must be resolved – to bring the Tech sector into more-free market line with the rest of the private sector.
And the Verizon-cable spectrum deal isn’t a merger. It isn’t even close. It is Verizon purchasing a product these cable joints purchased. Simple as that.
A purchase even the uber-Leftist Harold Feld of the uber-Leftist Media Marxist joint Public Knowledge originally lauded.
To what these companies are being subjected would be not unlike the government getting involved — to this multi-branch, multi-layered degree — to delay, beat-up and perhaps outright deny my buying your used car.
Still wondering why the economy hasn’t recovered?
This — and hundreds of thousands of other instances like this — is why.
