NDP Policy: no more corporate welfare...ugh wait a minute

In a move that has completely startled me, Jack Layton leader of the NDP has come out against corporate welfare. He has vowed to end the billions of corporate handouts and subsidies that make a mockery of the market system. If there is a NDP government, no more will the leaching rent seeking monopolists use the state to steal away money that they could not earn honestly.

Or so I assumed from reading this quote:

“As prime minister, I wouldn’t use your hard earned tax dollars to reward companies that ship jobs to the States or overseas,”

After reading the rest of the article it slowly dawned on me that Mr. Layton wasn’t talking about corporate welfare he was talking about tax cuts. A tax cut is not an award it is less of a punishment. On the other hand auto-industry bailouts were clearly an award for screwing up.

So why don’t the NDP go after the real handouts instead of complaining about lower taxes?

The answer is that in the collective mind of the NDP (they would be collective wouldn’t they?) state=good. Any policy that involves more state activity is good. Any policy that involves less state activity is bad. It doesn’t matter if the policy helps the big evil banks and corporations or if they help anybody else. A good policy is defined as how much bigger it makes government.