Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses [Hardcover]

Timothy P. Carney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2009

Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.

Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”

If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers.

Investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:

* The Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics

If you’ve wondered what’s happening to our country, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages” that create make-work government jobs, this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Obamanomics

“The notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free market is one of progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to demonize corporations by day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is exploiting the big business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it to entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author

“‘Every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich.’ With this astute observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare the Obama administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the president’s populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama

“Every libertarian and free-market conservative who still believes that large corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic liberty needs to read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who believes that expansions of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul

“It’s understandable for critics to condemn President Obama for his ‘socialism.’ But as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once more subtle and more sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while disproportionately punishing everyone else. So-called progressives are too clueless to notice, as usual, which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing; First Edition edition (November 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596986123
• ISBN-13: 978-1596986121
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #586,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tim Carney is a columnist and a reporter in Washington, D.C., with an expertise in rooting out just who stands to profit from politicians's latest "reform" proposals. Tim's first book, The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money, won the Templeton Enterprise Award in 2008 from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the Lysander Spooner Award for the "best book on liberty" in 2006.

Trained under veteran columnist Robert Novak, Tim is currently the lobbying editor and a columnist at the Washington Examiner. Tim, one of four boys, was born in Greenwich Village and grew up in Pelham, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

95 of 101 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Primer on Rhetoric v. Reality, November 24, 2009

By 

Fritz R. Ward "dayhiker" (Crestline, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses (Hardcover)

"Obamanomics" is the title of two books on the economic platform of the Obama administration. Apparently the phrase has a nice catch to publishers. But in the hands of Timothy Carney, author of this book, "Obamanomics" is shorthand for corporatism; the use of big government regulations to support corporate profits. This, of course, is not how most commentators see the new administration. They accept the rhetoric that this administration is promoting change by putting the interests of ordinary citizens ahead of corporate lobbyists. As this important book reveals, nothing could be further from the truth.

During his campaign for president, Obama carefully crafted a message of change. A repeated theme of the campaign was that big business had too much power in the Bush administration and his own administration would strictly regulate lobbyists and their corporate sponsors. Throughout the election, the Obama campaign successfully portrayed John McCain as a representative of "Big Business" while suggesting that Obama was funded by donations from average Americans. This myth is still believed by many Americans today. Throughout the book, however, Carney shows how fundamentally wrong this conception is. Obama received far more money from big pharmaceutical companies, like Pfizer, from big oil, like Exxon Mobil, from GE and Goldman Sachs, than McCain. Indeed, he received more than any other candidate for President in history. Carney carefully details the money spent on Obama industry by industry and in subsequent chapters describes just what all this money bought.

In general, popular mythology notwithstanding, large corporations routinely benefit from government regulation. Carney details several ways this can happen. Government contracts and direct subsidies are of course enormously profitable, but other effects of regulation are less obvious. One of the least obvious ways is that regulatory costs protect large corporations from competition. Consider for example the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. This bill proposes to limit greenhouse gas emissions by giving away carbon credits to industry and then letting markets decide how to price and trade those credits. Conveniently enough, the bill will simply give away credits worth 51 billion dollars to established corporations like GE, Exxon, and Chevron. But new businesses, hoping to compete with these giants, will have to purchase the credits. Barriers to entry are essential to a monopoly and markets don't readily provide these. But governments do, and so it is no wonder that as the size of the federal government has expanded, so too has the influence of corporate lobbyists who stand the most to gain under the policies of the Obama adminstration.

One of the key points in the book is that none of this has anything to do with Obama's intentions. Obama may well believe his own rhetoric. He may think (or hope) that he is representing the little guy against the power of professional lobbyists, but the simple facts are that when government largess is offered out, those with the most resources will be the first to collect. An example of how this logic plays out is Obama's health care initiative. Despite his rhetoric against pharmaceuticals and HMOs, Obama received a lot of money from this industry, far more than his opponent. During the campaign, he offered 4 solutions to the health care crisis: a "public option" (meaning a government run health insurance to "compete" with private care), opposing individual mandates (ie., requiring an individual to buy health care), subsidizing insurance, and preserving a tax subsidy on employer sponsored (but not privately purchased) health care. Now, the first two solutions are not favorable to industry and the last two are. And the current bill ... favors industry and will include an individual mandate. The first two campaign suggestions are off the table. Again, big business wins and the tax payer is left footing the bill. To paraphrase Gore Vidal, this is truly socialism for the rich and capitalism (with heavy taxes) for everyone else.

Carney examines every one of Obama's economic initiatives and finds the same pattern. Rhetorical claims to be opposing big insurance, big tobacco, big auto, etc, and signing or promoting legislation that will ultimately benefit the bottom line of these very corporations who often write the legislation! Carney does correctly note that none of this started with Obama. Indeed, George W. Bush also worked to favor his corporate cronies, though to nothing like this degree. But when it comes to what to do about this problem, Carney offers few solutions. He supports Ron Paul's campaign to audit the Federal Reserve (it would be nice to know how much money was created out of thin air to buy AIG and save Goldman Sachs.) But ultimately we need to recognize that the problem lies in government itself. Governmental regulation inherently favors the powerful and they themselves know this. Indeed, corporations have used governmental regulation to promote their agenda for the better part of a century. Anyone familiar with Gabriel Kolko's classic The Triumph of Conservatism knows that from the progressive era on big business has used government to protect itself from competition. What we need then, is to recognize the difference between rhetoric and reality when it comes to political proposals. That is not an easy task when dealing with someone as charismatic as President Obama. But reading this book is a good start.

45 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An indispensable book from an indispensable reporter, December 4, 2009

By 

M. Connolly (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses (Hardcover)

No joke: this is best book about how Washington really works you will see this year. It's probably the best since Carney's last effort, The Big Ripoff. If you want the inside story on how policy is made, you cannot ask the politicians, or the lobbyists, or the labor bosses, or the big businessmen. They have every incentive to lie, or at least, to spin you. Every reporter in Washington knows that the best stories are about what happens before and after, not during, the press conference. What company hires what political aides to lobby what subcommittee chairman to get their little earmark, their cherry-picked amendment, or their bailout?

For years now, in his regular columns and two excellent books, Carney has been doing real time, serious investigative journalism at this nexus of policy making, big business, and interest-group knife-fighting. In Obamanomics, Carney follows the money -- special interest groups to campaign committees to bailed out boardrooms. You'll see who is leading the seemingly noble campaigns for green energy, health care reform, and financial regulations... and how those same people are coincidentally positioned to make billions off of the policy changes they themselves have written.

Obamanomics has the substance for a policy wonk, but is written as a fast and entertaining read for the layman -- more like an episodic novel than a policy paper. The Becks and Olmbermanns have their place in the national dialogue, but Tim Carney's work is not punditry: it's old school shoe leather journalism.

I have three copies already -- one for me, and two already wrapped as Christmas gifts. It will probably serve as my go-to present for politically-minded friends for the next few years, too.

Obamanomics is everything you (don't want to know but) need to know about how Washington works in the age of Obama. It is, quite simply, an indispensable book from Washington's one indispensable reporter.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Business as Usual in Washington, DC, December 16, 2009

By 

Larry Underwood "Author - St Louis Cardinals ... (Scottsdale, AZ) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses (Hardcover)

Corporate America's PAC money has been controlling the political power brokers in Washington, DC for decades; this is nothing new. The rhetoric that Barrack Obama used---that he was going to bring about "change" in America (now known as ObamaNation)---got him elected, and to this point, much of America is still being fooled by that rhetoric; especially since a liberal media is giving him a free pass on just about anything he does.

Timothy P Carney has compiled a remarkably comprehensive piece of investigative reporting, and after the dust has settled, the reader will come away knowing that our new president is as clever as any sleazy politician ever; his image of standing up against the big corporations, while promoting the cause of the "little guys" is about to be tested with the facts that Carney has gathered. His effort is monumental, and well documented; and for Barrack Obama, this is more evidence of corruption that any American should be outraged by; this time, there's not enough rhetoric to cover up the simple truth.

It's business as usual in Washington, DC; and the fat cats of corporate America are only getting fatter, and more corrupt. The details are right here in this book.