Then, I guess we're both socialists...... but each from a different tribe. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
What you really seem to be against is a managed economy. Governments usually either pay money for welfare that tempts those accepting it to not work - or - they help corporations provide jobs - or - sometimes both at the same time.
While it might be idealistic to not do either (and I'd rather we didn't), I'd much rather nourish competitive business than pay folks to sit idle, including some of the farm programs that pay the farmer not to grow a crop and let his fields go fallow.
Frank
I'm not necessarily against a managed economy or government involvement, although I'm definately against tax payer funded direct and targetted financial incentives to any single private entity. I was mainly pointing out the hypocrisy from those in the conservative economic crowd that still supports this type of tax payer based corporate welfare.
The type of system I prefer is the one that successfully built this country until we abandoned it for the current system. The founders and later forefathers, preferred a bit of protectionism where the government manages import and export through taxation and tariffs and the referring of existing business through reasonable regulation and anti-trust enforcement.
It's pretty clear that the current system has failed miserably for our nation as a whole and when faced with spectacular failure after a long period of success, I tend to think that returning to past practices and policies that generated that success is probably the logical way to go.
