President Says He’s A “Fierce Advocate” For Free Markets; Evidence Says Otherwise

There’s a Businessweek interview excerpted on MSNBC in which the President defends his domestic policies as being pro-business. While his defense basically amounts to “it’s George Bush’s fault” and “don’t watch what I do, listen to what I say“, one bit caught my attention.

“We are pro-growth. We are fierce advocates for a thriving, dynamic free market. But we do think that there have to be some rules of the road in place in the financial sector that will create an even playing field and allow businesses to raise capital and consumers to buy products with confidence.
“Coming out of this past decade, there has been a sense on the part of a lot of middle-class families that they have been left behind, even when we were expanding.”

While I realize the President was referring to the overall economy when he said those last three words, the subtext that remained unspoken is the unabated growth of government during a period in which real wages have stagnated. Some Americans are doing really well in this economy. You chance of being one of them goes way up if you work for the government.
The President also goes on to say that industry groups are largely responsible for the idea that he is “anti-business”.

I think that part of what also happened was that there were some big issues like health reform, like energy, like financial regulatory reform, in which you have got some pretty significant, well-funded industry interest groups who are adamantly opposed. And they have got a lot of sway within the business community.

Well, if groups that were formed solely to advocate for business are wokring against your policy, it would stand to reason that those groups think the policy is bad for business. The President obviously misses the logic in play.
The current administration has nationalized car companies, handing large pieces of them to the unions, meddled in the day-to-day operations of countless businesses, levied “fines” (taxes) on banks, attempted to use the recession as a pretext to dictate corporate salaries, interfered in the market with programs like the stimulus and Cash For Clunkers, forced CEOs who weren’t on board to resign, and shrunk the private sector while growing the government to ever higher levels. The lesson the President wants the American people to take from all that is “[w]e are fierce advocates for a thriving, dynamic free market”.