Posted on 09/17/2014 6:56:12 AM PDT by all the best
Conservatives rightly rail against “welfare” programs such as food stamps. This is especially true when these programs are abused, but it is true in general as well. The government simply should not be in the business of redistributing wealth, and certainly not of giving direct handouts, especially to people who are perfectly capable of working.
But did you know that business corporations receive far more in direct handouts than do these maligned individuals—often backed by conservatives and conservative politicians? And the numbers will startle you. According to a report by watchdog organization “Open the Books,” Fortune 100 companies received direct handouts of over $1.2 Trillion between 2000 and 2012.
Food stamp costs, even after skyrocketing since 2009, amounted to less than half of that during the same period.
And these are not the indirect, so-called “subsidies” often condemned by the left (such as “tax breaks” for big oil companies, etc.). These are direct payments.
Norm Singleton of Campaign for Liberty passed along a report on the study from earlier this year:
Too many companies in America, from Boeing to AT&T, have come to regard government as a giant customer. They cheerlead for big government because they are among its chief beneficiaries.
So why hasn’t it happened? Why haven’t Republicans pledged to end corporate welfare as we know it? Part of the explanation is that too many politicians have gotten confused about the difference between free-market capitalism and crony capitalism. Democrats love welfare of any kind and seem to relish the idea of making big business government-dependent. President Obama, with his stimulus plans and his green-energy giveaways, has been a master at that.
The business interests have also gotten away with their taxpayer heist for too long by pretending that business subsidies are just a small, inconsequential part of the budget.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanvision.org ...
The source of all this - the Federal Reserve system and a fiat currency. It is the foundation of Progressive Government.
Being able to print money and issue debt at will, control interest rates and control the money supply means government will always grow bigger, more powerful and business, by definition, must become crony-capitalist because all economic decisions will involve government at some level.
Included in this author’s definition of the gravy train or “corporate welfare” is defense spending. So in this author’s opinion, the military hardware — fighter jets, missile defense systems, rocket launchers, guns and ammo, body armor, transport vehicles, etc. — used by our soldiers to defend our freedom is simply corporate welfare.
Key word in that statement is CUSTOMER. That is not quite the same thing as those who have come to regard the government as their giant piggy bank...
From what I read, there are more people receiving Federal payments than pay income taxes. Under Obozo, transfer payments to the "poor" are up a little over 30%. My Social Sercurity check has risen .01% during the same period. The Dems wouldn't try to buy votes with my money, would they? After all, free cell phones is a right, isn't it?
I'm so PO'ed I could spit.
The threat to our freedom lies in Washington DC. Those folks have restrictr4d out freedom far more than any foreigners ever have or ever will. Wake up. Please.
What handouts? WE have the highest corporate income tax rate in the world. If you work and get a tax break that is not a handout. The left/progs/libs always claim that anyone getting a deduction is operating under handouts. Not so since people who work for companies, WORK. See the difference. The parasites comprising most of the left don’t work. A simple difference but hard for the progs to understand. Furthermore, corporations spin off profits to share holders, that then pay up to 39% taxes on said profits. Seems you need a bit more education about the private sector.
Precisely...it seems more like the author is advocating business give their skills, services, and product to the government for free. Direct payments generally come from negotiated contracts and that is not corporate welfare.
If that is how the left wants to classify it, then every contract involving either defense or infrastructure is “fascist” and that is simply an unviable definition.
the “corporate welfare” story line and mode of attack is usually coming from LEFT WING sources.
Didn’t it just come out that the “war on poverty” cost far more than all the military spending during the same period?
I realize I'm preaching to the choir here because Freepers know what's going on. However, we need to make the effort to educate the rest of the idiots that the current direction of this Republic is not sustainable.
On one of his 2008 campaign speeches wasn’t he going around saying, “Am I not my brother’s keeper” in his, as Harry Reid described it, Negroe dialect.
>>The source of all this - the Federal Reserve system and a fiat currency. It is the foundation of Progressive Government.
Until conservatives express a united front on such forms of fascist oligarch plutocrat “conservatism”, we will continue to circle the drain pipe of history. This YouTube docu will put your head in a good place:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfpO-WBz_mw.
What is your assessment of Alexander Hamilton’s First Bank of the United States (1791-1811)? Was it a proto-Federal Reserve or was it completely different?
All Central Banks have the same function. To act as the Government's Bank, and control credit and interest rates. From my limited understanding of it - it was certainly less aggressive than our present central bank, in that it had a limited charter (20 years) the banks capital was paid in gold, and it was forbidden from buying government bonds. None of which exists in our present Central Bank. Jefferson and Madison opposed it for the exact same reasons they would oppose the present Federal Reserve. It was not Constitutional, it would be a source of crony-capitalist corruption, debt bubbles it produced which would impoverish the average citizen, and it would grow government power using printed money at the expense of other levels of government and individual rights.
Don't view this as some abstract academic or historical debate. A fiat currency with political control of interest rates means the Federal Government has power to grow to any size and spend on any progressive or nanny-state project it wishes.
This should have been obvious in 2008 when the Bush administration backed TARP, a taxpayer sponsored bailout of the financial services sector and a precursor to Obama's "stimulus" package.
The bottom line is that most Republicans love the welfare state too, as long as their corporate cronies get to feed from the trough. Most of the rhetoric about support for "free markets" is just that - empty rhetoric.
Leftists are wrong when they support welfare (food stamps, EIC, Medicaid) for the poor, but they're correct in opposing bailouts and subsidies for the wealthy.
Establishment Republicans are right when they oppose welfare policies for the poor but wrong when they (often covertly) support subsidies, bailouts, and special tax breaks (i.e. tax credits tailor-made to particular favored businesses, as opposed to general corporate tax cuts).
I do not argue your basic point.
I argue with the definitions involved.
Leftists will confuse the issues, as they always do. Dig deep. “Accelerated Cost Recovery” and depreciation and expense rules are OFTEN what they mean by “welfare” -— which is ridiculous! Business taxes should be based on business profits after expenses.
Also, as noted by other posters, accepting a check for products or services is NOT “welfare”.
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