Our elected officials would do well to remember that the most prosperous countries are those that allow consumers - not governments - to direct the use of resources. Allowing the government to pick winners and losers hurts almost everyone, especially our poorest citizens.
The country - or the government - is headed for bankruptcy. So we're going to be continuing to speak out against corporate welfare as something that hurts everybody except those direct beneficiaries.
Subsidies and mandates are just two of the privileges that government can bestow on politically connected friends. Others include grants, loans, tax credits, favorable regulations, bailouts, loan guarantees, targeted tax breaks and no-bid contracts.
We are not trying to prevent new clean energy businesses from succeeding. Any business that's economical, that can succeed in the marketplace, any form of energy, we're all for. As a matter of fact, we're investing in quite a number of them, ourselves - whether that's ethanol, renewable fuel oil.
Koch companies employ 60,000 Americans, who make many thousands of products that Americans want and need.
I studied what principles under-laid peace and prosperity and concluded the only way to achieve societal well-being was through a system of economic freedom.
When a company is not being guided by the products they make and what the customers need, but by how they can manipulate the system - get regulations on their competitors, or mandates on using their products, or eliminating foreign competition - it just lowers the overall standard of living and hurts the disadvantaged the most.
The best way to make money is to have more economic freedom, which is why we are one of the very few large companies that are consistently for it.
Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.
Laying the groundwork for smaller, smarter government, especially at the federal level, is going to be tough. But it is essential for getting us back on the path to long-term prosperity.
Far too many businesses have been all too eager to lobby for maintaining and increasing subsidies and mandates paid by taxpayers and consumers.
Far from trying to rig the system, I have spent decades opposing cronyism and all political favors, including mandates, subsidies and protective tariffs - even when we benefit from them.
Far too many well-connected businesses are feeding at the federal trough. By addressing corporate welfare as well as other forms of welfare, we would add a whole new level of understanding to the notion of entitlement reform.
Any of the social changes in American history are because people thought there was injustice. We have to show that this corporate welfare and cronyism is unjust - and that it's not only rigging the system so people get wealthy who don't deserve to get wealthy.
In business, real jobs profitably produce goods and services that people value more highly than their alternatives. Subsidizing inefficient jobs is costly, wastes resources, and weakens our economy.
