One of government’s primary undertakings is transferring wealth, frequently from taxpayers to politically favored corporations. Sometimes these transfers are rightly called corporate welfare, but more frequently they are disguised with terms such as stimulus, bailout, or infrastructure investment. Government programs of this kind, whether financed with current taxpayer dollars, deficit spending, or promised via loan guarantee, divert resources from higher-value uses and reward firms that have invested in special interest lobbying rather than superior products and services. Subsidizing and bailing out private firms is a negative-sum exercise that destroys wealth and prevents the efficient redeployment of resources throughout the economy.
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Sovereign wealth funds: Should governments invest in private businesses?
President Trump recently signed an executive order to study creating a sovereign wealth fund for the US government. If the proposal comes to pass,…

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Department of Education bails out of student loan bailout
For the second time in the past month, the Biden administration withdrew a proposed rule that CEI had opposed. The Department of Education has…

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Proposed student loan bailout rule makes no sense
As the Federal Register approached its previous record of 95,894 pages in a year (set in 2016), the Biden administration devoted a few more…