Stemming the Tide

Corporate Welfare "Help Uncle Sam Please Send Money"!



I find it curious that George Bush used his first and only veto on the issue of Gov't funding for additional Stem cell research (although I agree with this action). I think there were a few funding bills that were more deserving of his veto pen or pocket over the past six years.

What is even more curious to me is the basic premise being aired that Bio-Tech, Pharmaceutical and Energy companies are dependent on the Federal Govt. to help fund their research.

If you read the last section of Exxon/Mobile's annual report concerning research and defending their profits you see a chart that compares their industry's profits to other industries. Guess which three top the "profit percent" list...

Pharmaceuticals
Bio-Tech
Heath Care

So, why is it that the cost of research must be borne on the back of the tax payers, while the profit cycle of these companies is protected by the equivalent of trade protectionist measures by our government. The anti-import FDA, the tooth-less FTC and the see no evil/hear no evil Congress all either act to protect these industries from competition, or fail to act to engage anti-trust violations.

As you look at history, and the most meaningful advances in medicine and science,...The occasions where the government sponsored the research that found the cure/discovery are paled by the individual or private enterprise funded advances.

We need to get these industries off the government dole and the government out of the research business. Government can dangle a carrot to those that find the cure, the alternative fuel, the discovery,..But taking risk out of business is not the business of the government nor healthy in promoting true advancements. The result of taking risk out of business is to weaken the talent, energy and innovation that comes from the angst of business fundamental risk/reward dynamics.

Taking intelligent, calculated and well-considered research risks comes under the purview of enterprising business concerns. When government provides risk-less access to capital or painless dole no one is well served. The result of this squander-mongers process is businesses siphoning off precious capital in projects that may or may not have the merit. Traditional business scrutiny provides the risk/reward calculation that forces research advocates to be credible and results-centric. Moreover, far too often the tax-payers funds go to companies that are "connected" with Congressional members and other government decision makers, not necessarily connected with any relevant path to an advancement. We simply fund busy-work. Or as some accurately call it...Corporate welfare.

Stem Cell may very well be (as described by proponents) "the best opportunity for discovery and advances in health care in a century". If that is indeed true, this avenue of research will have no trouble finding capital to continue this worthy journey.

You don't have to have a religious-based objection to support the President's decision. Acknowledging that a significant part of the electorate objects to playing God is a political reality. While that may have been the President's motivation, I won't touch that argument with a ten foot pole. I do acknowledge the existence of many tax payers who object to stem cell research as the first turn on the roadway to organ harvesting, cloning misuse and other slippery slopes that run upstream to their of moral compass. Is it so far fetched to think that a company that found the upside of profiting from a government-sanctioned harvest program could bleed into other areas not yet on the horizon?

I just hope that in the coming two years Mr. Bush finds that veto pen and/or pocket on federal spending on order to address the 9-trillion dollar debt.