How To Get A 3000% Return On Your Investment: Invest In Politicians

Over at the Free Beacon (it's "beacon" not "bacon", settle down) Lachlan Markay takes a look at how the "private" Space X operation has turned a few thousand dollars in campaign donations and $300,000 or so in lobbying fees into tens of millions of dollars in subsidies for a proposed spaceport in south Texas.

Space Exploration Technologies, commonly known as SpaceX, will receive more than $15 million in public financing to build a launch pad in Cameron County, near the Mexican border.

The subsidies came after SpaceX’s founder, billionaire tech mogul and pop technologist Elon Musk, made campaign contributions to key state lawmakers and hired lobbyists with ties to Austin.

...

A prolific political donor, he began pouring money into the campaigns of key state lawmakers. On November 7, 2012, he donated $1,000 to state representative Rene Oliveira (D). Two weeks later, he gave state senator Eddie Lucio Jr. (D) $2,000.

The next month, the Associated Press reported that Lucio and Oliveira were working to secure state backing for a potential SpaceX launch pad in Brownsville.

Pure coincidence no doubt. Read the whole article to see how a few Lakers tickets and nights out on the town turn into massive government subsidies for a private company.

Sure it's good for these legislators' districts to have this kind of business there but what about other business that can't afford the six figure lobbyists who guide rich business types through the political machinery?

I'm not naive to think this sort of stuff hasn't gone on forever and will go on forever, it's simply human nature. That's why making government at levels as small as possible is so important.

What does continue to surprise me when it shouldn't is how cheap it is to buy politicians. Remember Team GOP's hero, Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran's longtime aide who accepted $20-30K in gifts from Jack Abrahmof in return to ensuring the felon's clients received millions in government money?

When you think about it it's really no surprise that politicians sell themselves so cheaply. Unlike honorable whores who sell their own bodies, politicians sell other people's money. Plus, they make it up in volume.

This bi-partisan rush to hand out everyone's money for their own gain is part of why I'm drifting away from conservatism and towards libertarianism. Screw them all.

posted by DrewM. at 10:14 AM

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