“The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers in any industry, and doing so in the energy sector is a recipe for disaster.”
That was then-Rep. Shelley Moore Capito in 2010 railing against the Obama administration’s revocation of a coal mine permit.
In 2012, Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) introduced legislation to repeal all energy tax credits and said the federal government must “stop picking winners and losers, stop supporting multi-million dollar, billion-dollar boondoggles, things like Solyndra, companies that simply can’t survive in the marketplace on their own.”
At the time, House Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) also said, “We have been uniform and broad and favor no one. We are trying to get the federal government’s tax code out of the business of picking winners and losers.”
The GOP has often said they prefer the free market, and we should allow winners and losers to be selected through market forces. Oh, how times have changed. Who’s picking winners and losers now?
When the White House announces tariffs on items like steel and aluminum imports, stock prices for beneficiaries like U.S. Steel and Century Aluminum are pushed higher. As a result of tariffs, stock prices were pushed down for other industrial companies such as Caterpillar and Boeing due to higher prices for raw materials.
President Trump has undertaken other measures to subsidize specific industries he has an affinity for—specifically, energy-related regulatory carve-outs for friends and family, such as the offshore drilling plan that shields Florida beaches. Trump also picks losers when he feels vindictive—like the corporate tax cuts that eliminated deductions for state and local income taxes. This disproportionately affected blue states.
President Trump is increasingly intervening in the economy, making decisions about corporate winners and losers in ways that Republicans for decades have insisted should be left to free markets—not the government.
The shift amounts to a significant change in the GOP’s approach to the management of the economy, and it promises to shape the success of everything from American agriculture and manufacturing to the companies that produce the nation’s electricity.
Trump was the biggest complainer about Obama using his executive order privilege to make decisions. Now we have a man in the office using his pen to control immigrants, environmental protection repeals, implement tariffs and demands of foreign countries, and other nonsense all in the name of national security.
It’s clear to me the American public is the loser in 2020. All levels of government have failed us. Over the weekend, negotiations in Congress have collapsed. The president is attempting to fool us again by writing bogus executive orders to pick more winners and losers.
It’s all a joke. I’ve lost faith in both political parties.
Clayton Craddock is an independent thinker, father of two beautiful children in New York City. He is the drummer of the hit broadway musical Ain’t Too Proud. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Howard University’s School of Business and is a 25 year veteran of the fast-paced New York City music scene. He has played drums in a number of hit broadway and off-broadway musicals including “Tick, tick…BOOM!, Altar Boyz, Memphis The Musical and Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar and Grill. In addition, Clayton has worked on: Footloose, Motown, The Color Purple, Rent, Little Shop of Horrors, Evita, Cats, and Avenue Q.