To the Editor:

“I am a conservative Republican, a firm believer in free market capitalism. A free market system allows all parties to compete, which ensures the best and most competitive product emerges, and ensures a fair, democratic process,” said Sarah Palin. It’s too bad most elected Republicans disagree with Ms. Palin.

Take the pharmaceutical industry, for example. By law, Medicare cannot negotiate the price for prescription drugs. Whatever a drug company wants to charge that is the price we pay. This is the opposite of a free market. The cost of this policy is billions of dollars of extra costs to the U.S. taxpayers.  

Defenders of the pharmaceutical industry say they need the extra billions in profits to do research new drugs. The truth is that the drug industry spends 19 times more on marketing than on research and development. 

How much does your “bundle” cost? The telecom industry and its four corporate giants — AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner — have a virtual lock on the Internet backbone, the “pipes” that carry data. They control the price of access. In many cities there is no competition, you pay what they charge. We in the U.S. pay on average three times what other developed countries pay. A $150 bundle in North Carolina might cost $15 in South Korea, or $45 in England. 

Twenty-nine Republican House members have cosponsored “The Internet Freedom Act.” This law would preserve the monopoly and prevent regulation to force competition. Together, the 29 Republican cosponsors have received over $800,000 in campaign contributions from these four companies. I am sure they have no trouble paying their cable bill.

Power from the sun is free, except in North Carolina. The budget bill signed by Gov. Pat McCrory killed the alternative energy subsidies. Republicans say the solar industry is now mature enough to directly compete with coal and gas. Then the former Duke energy executive McCory signed HB 245, which forbids competition by third party solar companies. This bill effectively gave Duke Energy a monopoly on power generation in the state.

And now, Duke Energy has sued a small firm which installed a solar system on a small black church because it violated Duke’s new monopoly status. Let me get this straight; Republicans kill all solar subsides to create real completion in the solar industry , then make it illegal for companies to compete. Perfect!

Is this the kind of “free market capitalism” that the Republicans believe in? I wonder if Sarah Palin would agree. 

Louis Vitale

Franklin