All the leading Republican presidential contenders except Jon Huntsman are denouncing government, with high vituperation. Yet all have spent some to most of their adult lives as office-holders, enjoying the perquisites of government and pocketing some of the public spending they say they oppose.
This a bit like a used-car salesman claiming to be a consumer crusader or a high-class madam denouncing Internet porn. Why does anyone believe politicians who shake their fists against government while comfortably ensconced as government insiders?
Consider:
* Rick Perry, the putative Republican frontrunner. After college he joined the Air Force – an admirable form of service, and also a secure government job. Afterward, he spent seven years in cotton farming, where federal price supports insulate growers against free-market competition. Since then, Perry has been a government employee: first in the Texas state legislature, then as Texas Agriculture Commissioner, then lieutenant governor, then governor of Texas. Now Perry is campaigning for a federal job with a $400,000 salary and very substantial subsidized lifetime benefits.
* Michele Bachmann. After graduating from law school, she worked as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service, a secure government job. Then she spent about a decade raising children. Since 2000, she has been a public official, first in the Minnesota state Senate, now in the U.S. House of Representatives. (more at link)
Author info: Gregg Easterbrook is the author of the bestselling 2010 book "Sonic Boom," as well as five other books of nonfiction and two novels. He is a contributing editor to The Atlantic, The New Republic and The Washington Monthly, a former visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and distinguished fellow of the Fulbright Foundation, and writes the Tuesday Morning Quarterback column for ESPN.
http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2011/09/22/conservatives-who-hate-government-but-want-government-jobs/I'm glad to see this evaluation and correct me if I'm wrong, but to see it at Reuters seems an important thing, aren't they pretty conservative and Republican loving?
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