AUSTIN – The Texas Public Policy Foundation today released Enemy of the People: How Big Government Barriers to Competition Hurt the Public and Subvert the Constitution. This report, authored by Mario Loyola, Senior Fellow at TPPF, argues that since the Great Depression, government’s protection of favored business interests to the disadvantage of others has created a cartel effect.
“When state governments satisfy a special interest’s desire for a government-created cartel—for example through restrictions in commercial and professional licensing—the people are denied choices, business opportunities are lost, and the state suffers significant economic losses,” said Loyola. “States that adopt such uncompetitive practices tend to band together in coalitions seeking to ‘federalize’ their cartel practices. That’s what the New Deal era was all about. State and federal protections of these interests groups has never been sufficiently analyzed or challenged.”
Loyola continues: “Government created cartels must be defeated at the level of the states before they become federalized, for once federalized, they become all but impossible to remove. The Texas Code is full of sweet deals that pad the profits for special interests at the expense of Texas families. Defeating these cartels should be our highest legislative priority.”
The full report can be read here: http://bit.ly/1flPDla
Mario Loyola is senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.
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