Crony Capitalists For Obama
Despite the GOP supposedly being the party of big business, Obama has been raking in far more corporate money than McCain. The question is: Why?
In 2000 and again in 2004, George W. Bush out-raised his Democratic rival among employees and executives of nearly every business sector, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which codes contributors by occupation.
In this election, however, Obama has bested McCain among employees and executives in finance, insurance and real estate; health; communications; law; and “miscellaneous business,” according to the center’s tally of contributions through August.
Part of this is just big business hedging their bets. They think Obama’s going to win (and they’re probably right) so they’re putting their money on him hoping to curry favor for the next four years. But another reason why big business sometimes sides with liberals is that liberal policies tend to suppress competition and benefit big business.
For instance, big companies like Wal-Mart love the minimum wage. Because despite all the left-wing carping about Wal-Mart paying “slave wages,” not one person who works for the company makes the minimum wage. So when Congress hiked the minimum wage it didn’t hurt Wal-Mart. It hurt all of Wal-Mart’s smaller, more local and/or regional competitors many of whom compete with Wal-Marts low prices by keeping overhead (of which payroll is the largest chunk) low. So when the minimum wage goes up it doesn’t hurt big business, it hurts the mom and pop store trying to make it with part time, minimum wage help.
The same with big, burdensome regulation. For obvious reasons, big business doesn’t like regulation. But there is a sliver lining for them in regulation in that it limits their competition. They don’t have to worry about small start-ups eating into their market share if they know that the regulation in their industry is so onerous that only a handful of their similarly huge competitors can keep up.
So what this close relationship between Obama and big business represents is an unholy alliance of big business and big government aimed at keeping small businesses down and out.
