Ninja Extreme Weapons (1988)
How Corporate Welfare Hurts You
You often hear Trump and Republicans in Congress railing against so-called “welfare programs” – by which they mean programs that provide health care or safety nets to ordinary Americans.
But you almost never hear them complaining about another form of welfare that lines the pockets of wealthy corporations. We must end corporate welfare. Now.
There are several ways corporations get rich on the taxpayer’s dime. The most obvious comes through subsidies or tax breaks for certain businesses or industries.
Consider the fossil fuel industry, one of the most profitable and privileged sectors of the economy. Every year, oil companies get to deduct millions of dollars from their tax bills for the cost of new wells, oil exploration, and other drilling and mining expenses.
It’s been estimated that repealing these special tax breaks would save taxpayers $39 billion over 10 years.
Other examples of corporate welfare include billions in government subsidies for agricultural conglomerates, pharmaceutical makers, tech giants and defense contractors.
Other industries don’t get these benefits. Meanwhile, most families don’t even benefit from tax credits and deductions for childcare.
State and local governments are also handing out corporate welfare, often with no strings attached. In 2013, for example, the state of Washington approved a record $8.7 billion handout to Boeing in order “to maintain and grow its workforce within the state.“ What did Boeing do? In the following years, it laid off more than 12,000 workers in the state.
It’s argued they create jobs, yet nationwide, not a single new job is created. At most, the jobs are merely moved from state to state.
How do corporations get this corporate welfare? Follow the money. They spend hundreds of millions on lobbying and campaign contributions.
An even more insidious example of corporate welfare occurs when corporations don’t pay their workers a living wage. As a result, those workers often have to rely on programs like Medicaid, public housing, food stamps and other safety nets.
Which means you and I and other taxpayers end up subsidizing these low wages so those corporations can enjoy even higher profits for their executives and wealthy investors.
For example, every year, Americans spend an estimated $153 billion in taxes and on programs to subsidize McDonald’s and Walmart’s low-wage workers.
Here’s the bottom-line: When corporations get special handouts from the government, it costs the rest of us. We have to pay more in taxes to make up for these hidden tax breaks, subsidies, and loopholes. In turn, there’s less money for good schools and roads, Medicare and national defense, and everything else we need.
So the next time you hear conservatives railing against welfare handouts for the poor, remind them that we should really be cutting corporate welfare – unnecessary and unwarranted aid for dependent corporations.
This is why you fucking tax the rich.
“What’s going to increase the deficit is the failure to deal with entitlement spending. That’s what’s driving it,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Ok.), an appropriator.
The deal raising the debt ceiling and setting spending limits for defense and non-defense discretionary spending this year will add as much as $1.7 trillion to the deficit over a decade.
Not recommended.
There is a lot of both-sides-ism in this piece, obscuring some basic facts.
Democrats do not want to gut or decrease government spending for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which Americans depend on for survival, but which Republicons refer to as “entitlements,” with a sneer.
Republicons always want to cut these lifeline social safety net programs, to achieve ever greater tax breaks for the wealthiest, and more massive subsidies for the biggest, wealthiest, most powerful industries.
This may help with clarity.
Democrats: America equals people – Americans, naturalized Americans, and potential Americans (who are asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants, and who should not be tortured). America equals powerful principles.
Republicons: America equals corporations and profits, wealthy people, and unprincipled power. Everyone else and everything else is an expendable and disposable resource.
#repost @tbl0604
・・・https://www.instagram.com/p/B0pCj_CH95-IXBn5QkpYD8MX3Bd_Cq9Eh3oWZ40/?igshid=1kwzza4mkm9o1
Dead Roaches
The mistake people make in talking to Conservatives about the Coming problems inherent in Climate Change is using the word Us. To the Conservative their is no Us or We, it is all I. As long as you explain what problems We face, their eyes will just glaze over and they at most will nod. The power brokers know this and they play on it, they allow finely crafted papers detailing every step, because none of those they expect to discard keeping us out of their way will respond, the words are wrong.
Want proof of this? Just look at how fast certain lines of approach were swatted down and never reopened. One entire set of problems was the migrant problem and how Syria’s Civil War was a demonstration of that problem. Because of key trigger words such as Migrant would trigger certain bases, this entire line of reporting is GONE. Has anyone followed up the Guardians reporting on climate and Guatemalan refugees? Some minor spill comes up on Bangladesh and the migrant effect their and on neighboring India, but low key and avoid comment on effects on US.
Dead Roaches
Don’t ever ask again if America is ready for ……… type of President. I would never have expected such an incompetent mass of naked nerves as the ignorant racists we have now, yet America quickly made him welcome and has yet to stand up o him in anything he has wanted, nor call him out on his imbecilic moves in the world arena. His corruption and cronyism is making Putin look both small time and professional.
Dead Roaches
Unless a person hiring for new jobs is paying a fair salary with benefits do not call them a job creator. What they are doing is using your misery to generate more wealth for them.
