Shame on Greedy Special Interests

The Democrats and Republicans compete for an electoral majority largely by providing entitlements, subsidies, tax breaks, and regulatory advantages for greedy constituencies, each of whom sincerely believes it deserves its special preference even though it comes at the direct expense of fellow taxpayers and fellow consumers.

Market Liberals believe that all such preferences should be repealed, and replaced with the bare minimum of tax incentives and regulations necessary to

• provide a safety net for the truly indigent,
  
• protect the environment from negative externalities, and
  
• regulate physical infrastructure like roads, pipes, and wires.

Nearly every constituency and industry is guilty and should be ashamed.  (I myself am ashamed and embarassed by the lax standards of patent obviousness that the software industry enjoys. Of the the one issued and 3 pending patents I've submitted for corporate employers, none are very non-obvious, and one is egregiously so. By acquiring Overture, my current employer Yahoo! now has inherited Overture's lawsuit against Google over the patented "invention" of paid search result listings.)

Here is a partial list of perpetrators: