From General Motors to General Electric, Boeing to Philip Morris, today's largest corporations have mastered the art of working with government officials at every level to stifle competition. They reap billions through a complex web of higher taxes, stricter regulations, and shameless government handouts. And who foots the bill for the increasingly cozy relationship between big business and big government?

Consumers. Taxpayers. Entrepreneurs. You.

The Big Ripoff pulls back the curtain to show who is strangling America's tradition of free enterprise, how and why they are doing it, and what you can do to help restore free enterprise along with your long-trampled rights as both a consumer and taxpayer. Hard-charging investigative reporter and commentator Timothy Carney will both fascinate and infuriate you with insider tales that include:

• A decade after reforming the welfare system for individuals, Congress is making the web of welfare for corporations even more impregnable than ever
• How government land grabs—"eminent domain for corporate gain"—are unfairly driving small mom and pop operations out of business
• Why cigarette behemoth Philip Morris is stridently leading the war against its own products, and strengthening its tobacco stranglehold in the process
• How the controversial "death tax" actually benefits Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and other billionaires—who are, not coincidentally, its most ardent supporters
• How the federal government drives up your gas prices with ethanol mandates and "clean fuel" rules that mostly enrich the biggest refiners and agribusinesses
• How Americans pay twice as much for sugar as the rest of world—and the difference lands in the pockets of one very rich, very well-connected family
• How the rich vote Republican, but how the very rich consistently back Democratic candidates—and why

Citizens and taxpayers are losing power over their government, and consumers and entrepreneurs are losing control over the economy, thanks to a deadly combination of power-hungry politicians and obliging CEOs. The Big Ripoff takes you deep inside the insidious, incestuous relationship of big business and even bigger government, and reveals how these purported rivals—huge corpora-tions and ambitious government officials?—work together to the detriment of consumers, taxpayers, and entrepreneurs.

"Politicians like to say that government is on the side of the little guy. But with impressive documentation and persuasive examples, Tim Carney shows how government power and regulation are typically used to assist the powerful."
—Paul A. Gigot Editorial Page Editor, the Wall Street Journal

"Exposes the dirty little secret of American politics: how big businesses work with statist politicians to diminish the prosperity and freedom of consumers, taxpayers, and entrepreneurs. Carney employs top-notch writing ability, passion for liberty, and understanding of economics to demolish the myth that big business is a foe of big government. Everyone who seeks to understand who really benefits from big government should read this book, as should anyone who still believes that the interventionist state benefits the average person."
—Congressman Ron Paul U.S. House of Representatives, 14th District of Texas

"Small entrepreneurial businesses are the backbone success of our great economy. They are the biggest job and wealth creators. Is that why big corpocratic behemoth firms collude with big government for a liberal agenda of higher taxes and overregulation that will punish the small risk-takers? Tim Carney's new book describes how anti-business big business can be."
—Lawrence Kudlow Host of CNBC's Kudlow & Company

"Tim Carney explodes the myth that big business and big government are natural opponents. All too often, as he points out, they're both engaged in a common enterprise: picking your pocket."
—Ramesh Ponnuru Senior Editor, National Review

"A romping tour de force of the love affair between big business and big government from Teddy Roosevelt and the Robber Barons to Enron and the Kyoto Treaty. Indispensable for understanding how government regulation really works."

—Donald Devine Grewcock Professor of Political Science, Bellevue University

"Every CEO in America should read this book today, issue new directives to their bureaucrat-appeasing Washington lobbyist tomorrow, and join in the fight for economic liberalization."
—Fred L. Smith, Jr. Founder and President, Competitive Enterprise Institute