President Barack Obama recently uttered one of the most frustrating, angering, and mind-numbingly uninformed things ever extruded by a government official.
Obamacare is in the midst of its ginormous, historic, inevitable fail — taking down with it the entire health insurance industry and large swaths of the broader private sector. And the man who led the demand that government do this said of the rolling, slow-motion train wreck, “What we’re discovering is … insurance is complicated to buy.”
Spoken like a man who has spent almost zero time in private, productive employment. And who described his very brief tenure in private, productive employment as being “Like a spy behind enemy lines.”
The president doesn’t like the free enterprise system. He fails utterly to understand it. (Or, or perhaps additionally, all of this wreckage is intentional, but that’s another essay.)
So with the 2014 elections looming, we read things like:
Are Democrats Really About to Start Calling for Obamacare Repeal?
To which the president responds, “We’re not repealing it as long as I’m president.”
The president and his Democrats demanded we drastically over-regulate the financial and banking sectors with Dodd-Frank. And when it inevitably goes terribly wrong: 36 Dems Go Against Obama, Support Dodd-Frank Change.
Yet the president remains impervious to facts: White House Threatens Veto Against Dodd-Frank Change.
Senator Obama promises before he is elected president: “(I)f somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them…”
And then as president: EPA Regs Have Closed More Than 300 Coal Plants
It’s almost as if he didn’t know coal generated about half of our nation’s electricity in 2009. Or maybe he did. Where was he planning to plug in all those Chevy Volts?
Under Obama, Oil and Gas Production on Federal Lands Is Down 40%
Senate Dems Urge Obama to Approve Keystone XL Pipeline
We could do this all day. This administration has been all-encompassing in its anti-private sector push. Joined by Democrats everywhere — until elections forced them to begin to acquiesce to reality.
Upon Obama’s inauguration, arguably the freest faction of the “free” market was the technology sector. Which is why the wired and wireless Internet Revolution has delivered unto us a free-speech, free-market Xanadu.
Nothing has made the First Amendment more horizontal than the World Wide Web. No longer does one need to cede speech to the pro-government media — just start a blog, speak your mind and spread the word. Find like-minded others, and start assembling. The Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy of the Tea Party all took place on the Net.
The omni-directional dynamism of the Internet’s economic impact is already huge — and only in its new-born infancy. It’s so new, we do not have but the merest inkling of all the wonderments to better our lives that will emerge.
Which is why it is vitally important we do not over-regulate or micromanage it. Even the tiniest of government interventions warps and truncates its evolution, depriving us of what might have been. The World Wide Web is our oyster — government seals it off and preempts the pearls to come.
So what (amongst other things) does the Obama Administration do to the Tech sector?
- Impose Network Neutrality.
- Impose cell phone price caps.
- Impose prison phone call price caps.
- Time and again micro-manage cable TV’s channel placement.
Are they done? We hope so, but they: May Push for Title II Internet Reclassification if Net Neutrality is Successfully Sued
And have asked Congress to insert it into what should be a private sector secondary spectrum market auction. The administration is contemplating imposing anti-free market rules for said auction (which is probably why it asked Congress to insert it – even though we know it’ll only make things worse), and spectrum caps, and attempting to limit telecom involvement in the auctions.
This Crony Socialist, picking-losers-at-the-expense of winners move would be horrible for the advancement of the web. You know who says so? New York Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer:
That is why I urge you, in structuring these auctions, to maximize participation by broadcasters and bidders alike by avoiding limitations that could lower the potential return and disincentivize broadcasters from offering their spectrum for auction.
While I understand that some have advocated for rules that would limit participation by some wireless carriers, the effect of such rules would simply be to reduce the amount of spectrum offered for auction as well as the revenue that would be generated in return.
Who says bipartisanship in DC is dead? There’s lots of it — in opposition to the president and his anti-private sector agenda. (At least with looming 2014 electoral losses staring down the Democrats.)
Indeed, Mister President, private enterprise is complicated to do. It becomes ever more difficult the more you and government insist you know how to do it better.
Henceforth, let’s use the Yellow Pages Rule. If you can find it in the Yellow Pages (or on YellowPages.com) — the government shouldn’t do it.