Dear WSJ: Government Can't Even Get Socialism Right

Editor, The Wall Street Journal

200 Liberty Street

New York, NY 10281

To the Editor:

Detroit auto executives persistently plead for Uncle Sam to bail them out – in part from the consequences of regulatory burdens that Uncle Sam himself imposed ("Auto Makers Detail Restructuring Plans," Dec. 2). This unsavory spectacle calls to mind an observation by the great Depression-era journalist Dorothy Thompson, who wrote during the height of the New Deal that "Unfortunately our policies are made by people who are often sadistic anti-capitalists ...  They seem to think that the way to socialize any industry is first to bankrupt it and then socialize the losses."

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Don Boudreaux is the Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University and a Business & Media Institute adviser.