Herman Cain, frontrunner for the GOP\u2019s presidential nomination, styles himself a Washington\u201coutsider,\u201d an \u201canti-politician\u201d and a businessman who is just what America needs at this critical moment in its history to turn itself around.\u00a0 Only someone of Cain\u2019s peculiar background, he would have us believe, only someone uncorrupted by the insatiable hunger for power from which all career politicians suffer, can restore America\u2019s greatness in the world.<\/p>\n
Again, this is the self-image that Cain works inexhaustibly to project.<\/p>\n
There is one question, though: is it true<\/em>?<\/p>\n The first fact that must not be lost upon us is that while Cain is a reasonably successful businessman, and while he is not a professional politician, the notion that he is the \u201cMr. Smith\u201d of our time who is about to take Washington by storm is a fiction of the first order.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cain, you see, was at one time a Federal Reserve chairman.\u00a0<\/p>\n Federal Reserve<\/strong><\/p>\n Now, if ever we needed a symbol of Big Government, the Federal Reserve is it, <\/em>bar none.\u00a0 The White House, Capital Hill, the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, and even the Pentagon\u2014none signifies more profoundly and succinctly the omnipotent nature of our federal government.\u00a0 As Henry Kissinger once remarked, whomever \u201ccontrols the food supply controls the people,\u201d and whomever \u201ccontrols the energy can control whole continents,\u201d but whomever \u201ccontrols money can control the whole world<\/em>\u201d (emphasis mine).\u00a0<\/p>\n The point to take away from this is not that Cain acted objectionably in assuming this position, or at any time during his tenor as Fed chairman.\u00a0 The point is that he hasn\u2019t an iota of credibility when he depicts himself as a stranger to Big Government.\u00a0 As a Federal Reserve chairman, he was wedded <\/em>to the all-encompassing sovereign known as the federal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n That Cain hasn\u2019t any objections to the Federal Reserve and, by extension, federal supremacy, becomes undeniable once we consider his response to the proposal, advanced tirelessly by the likes of his colleague and rival, Ron Paul, that the Fed be audited.\u00a0 While on Neal Boortz\u2019s show, Cain said that since there were already audits in place, another audit of the sort that Paul requests would be \u201cunnecessary\u201d and a \u201cwaste [of] money.\u201d\u00a0 On another occasion, Cain expressed uncertainty concerning the usefulness of an audit. \u201cWhat I\u2019m saying is [that] this request for an audit, I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s the answer to any problem other than people think that they [the Fed] don\u2019t want to be audited.\u201d\u00a0 At still another time, Cain asserted bluntly that: \u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to find anything to audit on the Federal Reserve.\u201d\u00a0 He suggested that anyone who is curious about the dealings of the Fed should simply contact the bank and direct questions to its officials.\u00a0 This should suffice to dispel all doubts regarding the Federal Reserve\u2019s trustworthiness, for it is \u201cone of the tightest-run federal entities I have ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n In spite of attributing to it unprecedented efficiency, Cain acknowledges that the Federal Reserve Bank today <\/em>has its share of problems.\u00a0 Yet this hasn\u2019t anything at all to do with the structure of the Bank itself; rather, it is because those in charge\u2014like Ben Bernanke\u2014have allowed it to become \u201cpoliticized.\u201d\u00a0 During the 1990\u2019s, when Cain was a Federal Reserve chairman, you see, the Fed was \u201cnon-politicized.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n TARP<\/strong><\/p>\n It isn\u2019t just Cain\u2019s almost astonishingly na\u00efve views on the Federal Reserve that expose his affection for Big Government; Cain also supported the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) of 2008.\u00a0 This, as I am sure everyone now knows, is the notorious piece of legislation by which the federal government spent hundreds of billions of taxpayers\u2019 dollars bailing out troubled banks.\u00a0<\/p>\n In October of 2008, Cain takes \u201cfree market purists\u201d to task for objecting to the bailouts on the grounds that it would consist in \u201cthe nationalization\u201d of the banking industry.\u00a0 It would not, Cain insists, for nationalization entails that \u201cthe government would own at least 51 percent of the entity for an indefinite period of time.\u201d\u00a0 But, Cain assures readers, with TARP, taxpayer ownership of the banks \u201cis going to be relatively small and nowhere near the amount to be called nationalization.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cSo,\u201d Cain asks, \u201cwhat\u2019s the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n Cain\u2019s position is clear: \u201cOwning a part of the major banks inAmericais not a bad thing.\u00a0 We could make a profit while solving a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Observe both the narrowness and, truth be told, deceptiveness of Cain\u2019s definition of \u201cnationalization.\u201d\u00a0 Since nationalization requires that the government <\/em>have at least 51% ownership <\/em>of the banks, and since the government will own a relatively small share under TARP, the latter does not open the door to nationalization.<\/p>\n Vis-\u00e0-vis the nationalization of the banking industry, the percentage of the government\u2019s ownership of the banks is neither here nor there, and Cain, we can only hope, must know this.\u00a0 In fact, it doesn\u2019t matter whether the government owns <\/em>any share at all in the banks.\u00a0 If the government controls <\/em>the banks, if it can determine how lending institutions conduct their affairs, then this, for all intents and purposes, suffices to establish that the banks have indeed been nationalized.\u00a0 And anyone who knows anything at all about the nature of government knows that if it \u201cowns\u201d any part at all of the banking industry, it in effect controls all of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n As if his support of the disastrous TARP wasn\u2019t bad enough, just a week prior to the economic collapse in September of 2008 to which TARP was thought to be the remedy, Cain insisted that the economy was in fine condition.\u00a0 But one week outside of among the most severe economic crises that our country has experienced since the Great Depression, a crisis loudly predicted for years <\/em>by, among others, Cain\u2019s fellow Republican, Ron Paul, Cain insisted that our economy was sound.\u00a0 The housing market bubble that had been inflated for years by government intervention was about to burst, and yet Cain apparently couldn\u2019t decipher the connection between the one and the other.<\/p>\n Miscellaneous Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan<\/em><\/p>\n For all of his talk of being an anti-politician, a Washington outsider, Cain sounds awfully like those Republican politicians who have spent their careers inside the Beltway\u2014especially when it comes to our military\u2019s overseas exploits intended to \u201cdemocratize\u201d the Islamic world (and elsewhere).\u00a0 Cain supported both the wars inIraqandAfghanistan, and he steadfastly opposes any and all \u201ctimetables\u201d for withdrawing our troops.\u00a0 This is significant, for war, particularly the perpetual \u201cWar on Terror\u201d of which the wars inIraqandAfghanistanare but specific battles, is the lifeblood of the government.\u00a0 Government grows at no time like it does during times of war.\u00a0 Yet Cain wants to cut not a single penny from our defense budget.<\/p>\n Social Security and Public Education<\/em><\/p>\n Again, on these issues, Cain sounds indistinguishable from just those professional politicians to whom he is supposedly opposed.\u00a0 He does not object to the federal government\u2019s involvement in either social security or education.\u00a0 He would, though, like to \u201creform\u201d the current systems that we have in favor of systems in which \u201cchoice\u201d figures more prominently than it currently does.\u00a0<\/p>\n As is true in the case of the federal government\u2019s bailing out the banking industry (or any industry), whether the government\u2019s role in providing \u201ca safety net\u201d and a \u201cfree\u201d education is overt or covert, whether or not it is concealed with talk of \u201cchoice,\u201d \u201coptions,\u201d and\/or \u201cmarket-based solutions,\u201d it is the federal government that remains in control <\/em>of the system.\u00a0 As they say, you can put lipstick on a pig but\u2026.<\/p>\n Cain has never called for the abolition <\/em>of any governmental programs, <\/em>let alone agencies. <\/em>\u00a0Instead, he talks of reforming <\/em>them.\u00a0 As is the way with all socialists, communists, and, in short, lovers of Big Government, so is Cain\u2019s way: it is never government per se <\/em>that is the cause of our problems, but only the office holders <\/em>who administer it.<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n Herman Cain, I hope it is now clear, is an establishment politician\u2019s politician.\u00a0 If the Tea Partiers, conservatives, and libertarians of whom the Republican Party is comprised want but another champion of Big Government as their next president, then Herman Cain is as worthy of their party\u2019s nomination as anyone.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n originally published at The\u00a0New American\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Herman Cain, frontrunner for the GOP\u2019s presidential nomination, styles himself a Washington\u201coutsider,\u201d an \u201canti-politician\u201d and a businessman who is just what America needs at this critical moment in its history to turn itself around.\u00a0 Only someone of Cain\u2019s peculiar background, he would have us believe, only someone uncorrupted by the insatiable hunger for power from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n