Government Help For Boeing Is Good—However, Government Helping You Get Health Insurance Is Bad

The New York Times has reported a Wikileaks disclosure that the U.S. Government is very active abroad in brokering deals to sell U.S. made civilian aircraft.

(Above—The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. What is good for Boeing is good for America.)

From the Times–

“The king of Saudi Arabia wanted the United States to outfit his personal jet with the same high-tech devices as Air Force One. The president of Turkey wanted the Obama administration to let a Turkish astronaut sit in on a NASA space flight. And in Bangladesh, the prime minister pressed the State Department to re-establish landing rights at Kennedy International Airport in New York. Each of these government leaders had one thing in common: they were trying to decide whether to buy billions of dollars’ worth of commercial jets from Boeing or its European competitor, Airbus. And United States diplomats were acting like marketing agents, offering deals to heads of state and airline executives whose decisions could be influenced by price, performance and, as with all finicky customers with plenty to spend, perks.”

Does Boeing complain that the hand of government is stifling private enterprise and that this is socialism?

Nope. They take the help.

If what the U.S. government is doing helps create good U.S. jobs—Fine.

What I don’t understand is how our government can take such a blatant role in private commerce and nobody objects, while at the same if we try to do something for the 50 million people in this nation who have no health insurance—That is somehow bad?

I suppose a reason that efforts on behalf of Boeing are okay is that it helps wealthy large stockholders in Boeing to become even more wealthy. Government involvement in private enterprise is fine as long as it helps folks who are already rich.

On the other hand, getting people health insurance helps folks who actually need help. Helping people who actually need help is socialism that will pave the way to Soviet type dictatorship.

Here is a Chicago Tribune story about $5 billion in government subsides that Boeing has received in recent years.

However, help from the government for average people who have no health insurance will be fought tooth and nail.

In the United States of America, when you have a big time recession caused in large part by the greed and misdeeds of the rich, the response is to bash the poor and to bash public employees.

What a country we have become.