In 2006 the federal government spent $92 billion in direct and indirect subsidies to businesses and private-sector corporate entities like Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical, General Electric, and many others. They’ve only gotten more in the last seven years.
This kind of corporate welfare is defined by the Cato Institute as “any federal spending program that provides payments or unique benefits and advantages to specific companies or industries.”
Wal-Mart Corporation is at the top of the list of corporate welfare recipients, receiving an estimated $1 billion in state and local government subsidies.
In addition to subsidies, corporations take advantage of tax breaks that reduce their 35% tax rate down to an average of 13%, with giants like Exxon Mobile manipulating laws that leave them with zero taxes to pay.
Wall Street hedge fund managers get public assistance as well because of current law (thanks to the Bush II administration) that allows them to pay a 15% rate on their earnings, while the people whose money these hedge fund managers are investing have to pay a 35% rate.
I know it doesn’t sound real, but there actually is a special subsidy for corporate jets that cost taxpayers $3 billion annually; a tax deduction for second homes that costs us $8 billion a year; and annual taxpayer-funded subsidies to billionaire (yes, “billionaire”) farmers.
In the face of these corporate welfare facts we still have right wing critics like Charles Krauthammer getting on Fix News and criticizing poor people who he says want “to feed off the public teet,” and conservatives in Congress who are insisting the farm bill that will keep paying subsidies to billionaire farmers must include cuts in the food stamp program.
At the same time they call efforts to reform corporate welfare “tax increases” and “job killers.”
It is this kind of hypocrisy that makes the war being waged on the poor so detestable.
This war is not about government overreach, government undermining personal responsibility and initiative, or government spending. It’s about supporting and justifying the power of corporate money to lobby and make political payoffs. It’s about the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling doing its dirty work on behalf of the rich.
Poor don’t have well funded lobbyists to make their case. They hardly have a voice at all. When they do it is often that of a dedicated volunteer or a paid staff member of an advocacy organization who is receiving a very modest salary.
The goal of those who give the poor a voice is to persuade enough sensible leaders to stop long enough to realize that people needing public assistance are not a whipping post or a political football. They are our brothers and sisters who just want a chance to make a life for themselves.
If someday they do win over enough of our political leaders they just might join together to do something about the growing economic inequality in our nation that would be sensible, just, and effective.
All it would take is a measure of moral and political will.
This much is for sure. Helping the poor will never do harm to our nation’s moral character, but disparaging them while the rich get richer at their expense only undermines efforts to make us a more just society.
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Jan, I appreciate your knowledge and courage to name it.
so disheartening…Dixcy
It’s people like you and Nolan who give me courage and encouragement.
Thank you for spending your life committed to justice.
I’m a United Church of Christ retired minister and I’ve seen what you are talking about develop over the years. It’s just seems so unbelievable that our politicians can justify giving billionaires and large corporations lots of money by lowering their taxes, and even give them subsidies, and then reduce food stamps and threaten to do away with Social Security and Medicare after we’ve paid into it for decades. I am a radical (deeply rooted In God) because Jesus has been my inspiration since I was five years old, and he told his followers to “feed the hungry and clothe the naked.” Some of us called that “unconditional love” and we are to “love our neighbor as we do to us.” w
I think you have understood Jesus very well, Rev. Rezash. Thank you for sharing this with others.
Yes, there is a reason the rich get richer.
Jack becker
Jack, yes there is!
Thank you once again, Jan, for this reminder of the distorted and selfish thinking of many wealthy individuals and especially corporations. Their political actions will lead this nation back to an aristocracy of concentrated wealth and power the likes of which our founders fled. If so, after two and a half centuries the only change will have been the family names of the aristocrats! Ultimately, men must be governed, all men, for justice to prevail in a society. If that does not come from an internal knowing, as in hunter-gatherer cultures sharing game brought down only by the hunting party, then it must come from external codes or regulations; laws that dignify all. We all must fight aristocracy, for a return to greater, broader justice … for the Bill Of Rights!
Interesting how Jesus showed up as humanity became more “sophisticated” socially. Sometimes it seems our more “primitive” predecessors often acted more brotherly than we do. Just a thought.
Bob, I think you are exactly right. We often suppose our ways to be more advanced than ancient civilizations, when in fact they are often a regression.
It requires spiritual maturity for all to adopt unconditional love. This becomes manifest when individuals share according to their ability in support of the common good.
I think that unfortunately, as long as we have a political system which runs on money, and not much else; and as long as Citizens United stays in place, it is going to be VERY difficult to get any member of Congress interested in doing anything for the poor, much less get many, or even several, of them interested in doing so. As I see I there two big steps that must be taken in order to address this problem: I) Overturn of Citizens United & anything like it now & in the future, 2) Public financing of political campaigns.
I also think, unfortunately, that the chance of either of those happening is slim to none. I think we have a political class that is driven by money, and they have no incentive or desire to do anything to stop the money flow.
I also think there are many people who side with Charles Krauthammer’s views on the poor, and who call anything to aid the poor socialism. And we know that socialism is ipso facto BAD, right?. There are also those who say “the poor should just go out and get a job” Who are they kidding?!!!
You named it, Wally. It’s all about “show me the money.”
Conservatives also ignore the fact that corporate welfare is “socialism” every bit as much as aid to individuals, and far less defensible.