Sarah Palin calls Trump’s deal with Carrier ‘crony capitalism’

Former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who is reportedly under consideration for a spot in President-elect Donald Trump's administration, criticized Trump's recent deal with Carrier to keep jobs in the United States.

Trump visited the Carrier plant in Indianapolis on Thursday and touted the deal during a speech after the visit in front of a Carrier banner.

Carrier will keep about 1,000 jobs in Indiana, instead of moving them to Mexico. In exchange, the state of Indiana is giving the company about $7 million in incentives. Vice president-elect Mike Pence in the current governor of Indiana.

"When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people's free enterprise system gets amputated," Palin wrote in an op-ed published Friday by Young Conservatives.

"Then special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail."

Palin, then the governor of Alaska, was on the 2008 Republican ticket with Arizona Senator John McCain. McCain and Palin lost to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Palin was an early supporter of Trump, endorsing him in January of 2016.

She conceded that she did not know all the details of the Carrier deal, but said "let's hope every business is equally incentivized to keep Americans working in America."

Palin concluded: "Cajole only chosen ones on Main St or Wall St and watch lines stretch from Washington to Alaska full of businesses threatening to bail unless taxpayers pony up. The lines strangle competition and really, really, dispiritingly screw with workers' lives. It's beyond unacceptable, so let's anticipate equal incentivizes and positive reform all across the field – to make the economy great again."

Read her entire piece here.

Palin is under consideration for secretary of veterans affairs, the second largest government agency by total staff, according to multiple reports.