Crony Capitalism

Posted by Jeff Carter
on June 20th, 2012

Many just say the words crony capitalism and think about how corporate lobbyists get cozy with government officials. Other ways it manifests itself is via government officials leaving their jobs and becoming lobbyists. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of crony capitalism. It’s not party specific.

But, many times instead of going to work for a lobbyist, they find ways to get appointed to government positions or cozy educational positions. Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass calls it The Combine. However, it’s much more rampant on the Democratic side than the Republican side.

In order to educate you about how the Chicago Machine works here, I thought I might show a few examples.

Dan Seals ran for Congress twice and was beaten by Mark Kirk, who is now a Senator. Bob Dold, a Republican won the last race and let’s hope he wins again. Since Mr. Seals can’t win a race for an office, he used his friends in government to get appointed to a government position. “Assistant Director at Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity”. Your tax dollars at work.

Tammy Duckworth ran for Congress against Peter Roskam and lost. She is running against Republican Joe Walsh in this election cycle. What has Ms. Duckworth been doing since she lost her race to Roskam? Why, she was appointed to a government job.

Here is a twist. Dawn Clark Netsch ran for governor in 1995, lost. Prior to that she was Illinois Comptroller (why do we have comptroller’s when we have treasurers?) In 1972, she was elected to the State Senate. Now she sits on Northwestern’s law faculty, along with that other scion of justice Bernadine Dohrn (Who’s husband Bill Ayers was on the UIC faculty)

Valerie Jarret, who’s Wkipedia entry says, “In 1983 Jarrett married Dr. William Robert Jarrett, son of famed Chicago Sun-Times reporter Vernon Jarrett. She attributes her switch from a private to a public career to their daughter Laura’s birth and her own desire to do something that would make the daughter proud.[7]“. Or was it, the guaranteed money, power and pension a public career could bring because private careers are so darned competitive? Much easier to have your palm greased than grease palms.

Here is a “reform” Democrat. Forrest Claypool. He is now the Chicago Transit Authority President. Appointed by the mayor.

If you start digging around the internet with names that keep popping up, you will see they transition from appointed government job to government job, to commission, to board of some public government entity, to a university, and maybe to a “consulting” group.

Again, it’s not confined to Democrats. I merely pointed it out in Illinois. There are certainly Republican combines and machines. This is a case and point about why we need smaller government, and need more merit, not political connections to make us more competitive. Privatizing many federal, state, and local agencies would go a long way to making government cheaper, and the debts and taxes the populace pays, far less than they are currently.

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