From Publishers Weekly
When it comes to the corporations that dominate the US economy, says Carney, there's no difference between Big Business Republicans and Tax-and-Spend Democrats. No matter who's in charge, Big Government and Big Business team up to create a quasi-fascist collective designed to extract maximum revenue from the common citizen. Carney has a host of facts to back up this theory, covering the history of Big Business and Big Government, the tradition of corporate welfare in America, profiles of such private offenders as Phillip Morris and Enron, and the "green" cheat of "environmentalism for profit." Even the heavy taxes and regulation under which large corporations operate is, paradoxically, largely to their benefit, in Carney's view; such impediments serve as barriers to competition, keeping out rivals and allowing monopolies and oligopolies to thrive-and the extra expense, in what becomes a familiar pattern, is simply passed on to the consumer. Though Carney's dire prognosis seems grim, this is an absorbing look at the disconcertingly cozy (and profitable) relationship that has developed between regulator and regulated in America.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"...produces a spirited and eminently readable indictment of the unsavory alliance between corporate and congressional America." (The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2006)

"...so good that you might even consider putting it under the tree of the liberals on your Christmas list....they will likely find it fascinating how big business uses government to its advantage. Furthermore, they will likely find The Big Ripoff hard to put down due to Carney's compelling style of writing.... Carney smashes the conventional wisdom that big business is inherently pro-free market and anti-government."—from "Santa Government" by David Hogberg (American Spectator, December 15, 2006)

"This book should be read by every Northern Virginia taxpayer for a chapter aptly titled "You Get Taxed, They Get Rich" in which Carney illustrates this dynamic by examining how former Gov. Mark Warner pushed through the largest tax increase in the commonwealth’s history. Warner, now a presidential hopeful, was helped by the state’s top business leaders, who themselves spent more than $7 million lobbying for higher taxes, instead of the other way around." (The Washington DC Examiner)

"Bashing big business is traditionally a left-wing indulgence, but it need not be. Political reporter Timothy Carney, a small-government conservative, takes up the task with relish in the "The Big Ripoff." Along the way, he produces a spirited and eminently readable indictment of the unsavory alliance between corporate and congressional America." (The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2006)

"...makes a good case that the American people might be better served with less taxpayer subsidization and governmental protection of big business." (The Boston Globe)