The S.H.A.M.E. Project on Megan McArdle: Portrait of a Libertarian as a Taxpayer-Subsidized Brat
http://shameproject.com/report/megan-mcardle-portrait-libertarian-taxpayersubsidized-brat/
Megan McArdle: Portrait of a Libertarian as a Taxpayer-Subsidized Brat
By Mark Ames • Sep 21, 2012 • REPORT
Just when you think you’ve seen so much hypocrisy that nothing can shock you, along comes Megan McArdle. McArdle, who blogs for the Atlantic Monthly, presents herself as a principled libertarian, fiercely denouncing any attempt to provide any sort of government-funded health care, because as she argues, big government is bad, bad, bad. She’s written some truly appalling things over the years as a shill for big corporate interests, recently defending Goldman Sachs because, as she wrote, “financial meltdowns offer no villains.”
Last week, McArdle posted an encyclopedia-length article on the Atlantic Monthly’s site, denouncing Obama’s health care plan in a rambling piece that essentially boiled down to this: big government is a bad thing, and free markets are the medicine you need, even if you don’t like it, and even though you can’t afford it. McArdle’s post sparked a series of smackdowns, including Ezra Klein in the Washington Post , and Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake.
What Megan McArdle doesn’t mention is that her own privileged upbringing was funded by public money….Even more galling is that Megan’s father got his start in the public sector working in taxpayer-funded health care programs. If it weren’t for her father’s employment as a public health care official in the 1970s, Megan McArdle’s life might have turned out completely different from the privileged one she enjoyed.
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So Megan McArdle’s entry into this world was literally greased by taxpayer funds. But of course, it wouldn’t stop there.
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So when it comes to health care, Megan McArdle has the worst solution of all, a solution designed to protect her privilege: inaccessible free market innovations for us, and corruption on the taxpayer dime for Megan and her brood. Remember this the next time Megan McArdle defends the corrupt and broken system that’s worked so well for her, and so disastrously for the rest of us.