This is what is wrong with government. The taint of big money - it's a vicious triangle, with the deeply funded think tanks promoting their political agenda, set primarily by corporate and/or commercial interests, funneling money into the coffers of politicians. It's justifiably decried, but where is the outrage on the monies that flow into the lobby groups from these organizations? I'm not talking about groups like the NRA and the NEA - I'm centering my view on the think tanks like CATO, Heritage Foundation and the astroturf groups like Global Climate Coalition (a supposed environmental group that basically echoes the interest of the coal industry), junkscience.com (and the worthless piece of scum that runs that, financed by CATO dollars), Microsoft funded groups like the National Taxpayers Union, etc.. The 60plus group can be included as one of the more egregious examples. Even the far right American Spectator called their fund raising tactics "shady". In 1995, they took in 1.3 million from citizens, but 60plus only kept $93,000 the rest went to archconservative Richard Viguerie.

Yet these organizations toss terms like non-partisan and independent when nothing could be further than the truth. The president, James Martin, tossed out other national privatized programs as illustrative examples for social security reform in the U.S., but the truth is those programs have been failures. The administrative costs in privatized systems, such as the ones in England and Chile, are more than 1500 percent higher than those of the U.S. system. But what enrages me is the disingenuous ploys these individuals and organizations in intentionally obscuring the notion that they are acting on a political agenda checklist, which has the interests of its big money suitors in mind, not the American citizen.

In the first hour of Dayl's program today, the guest was a CATO Institute shill, Charlotte Twight, whose latest book Dependent on DC chronicles the growth of government and the evils of big government. These people blindly prattle on about the ills of big government, yet never acknowledge that most all of the technological improvements in standard of living, condition of life, etc. would not have been possible without firsthand government involvement. Transistors, the internet, interstate highways, the weapons systems that defend our freedom all were directly attributable to the work of government, at least before the technology was given away to private enterprise to profit from. I suggest that promoting debate on the issues is a healthy deal but just polluting the airwaves with paid political pandering seems an affront to decency and intelligence.

And the irony is that most of these conservative cacklers continuously affirm the need for voters to enlighten themselves on the issues. Yet they spoon feed them the same soup of sprue that their elected legislators shovel at them.