corporate welfare

Corporate welfare is a pejorative describing a government's bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment on corporations. The term was coined by Ralph Nader in 1956.^[1][2] "Corporate welfare" creates a satirical association between corporate subsidies and welfare payments to the poor, and implies that corporations are much less needy of such treatment than the poor.

Corporate welfare as corrupt subsidies

Main article: Subsidy

Subsidies considered excessive, unwarranted, wasteful, unfair, inefficient, or bought by lobbying are often called corporate welfare. The label of corporate welfare is often used to decry projects advertised as benefiting the general welfare that spend a disproportionate amount of funds on large corporations. For instance, in the United States, agricultural subsidies are usually portrayed as helping honest, hardworking independent farmers stay afloat. However, the majority of income gained from commodity support programs actually goes to large agribusiness corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland, as they own a considerably larger percentage of production.^[3]

According to the Cato Institute, the U.S. federal government spent $92 billion on corporate welfare during fiscal year 2006. Recipients included Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical, and General Electric. [1]

See also

• Public choice theory
• Regulatory capture
• Libertarianism

Notes

1. ^ http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Nader/CutCorpWelfare_Nader.html
2. ^ http://www.nader.org/releases/63099.html
3. ^ http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter3.htm

References

• "The Corporate Welfare State: How the Federal Government Subsidizes U.S. Businesses," by Stephen Slivinski. Cato Institute, 2007.
• Nader, Ralph. Cutting corporate welfare (Seven Stories Press, NY, 2001).
• Jansson, Bruce S. The $16 trillion mistake: How the U.S. bungled its national priorities from the New Deal to the present (Columbia University Press, 2001)
• Mandell, Nikki. The corporation as family : the gendering of corporate welfare, 1890-1930 (University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
• Glasberg, Davita Silfen. Corporate welfare policy and the welfare state: Bank deregulation and the savings and loan bailout (Aldine de Gruyter, NY, 1997).
• Lewish, David. Louder voices: The corporate welfare bums (Lewis & Samuel, 1972).
• Whitfield, Dexter. Public services or corporate welfare: Rethinking the nation state in the global economy (Pluto Press, Sterling, Va., 2001.)
• Folsom Jr, Burton W. The Myth of the Robber Barons (Young America)
• Rothbard, Murray N. Making Economic Sense, Chapter 51: Making Government-Business Partnerships ISBN 0-945466-18-8 (1995)
• Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. ISBN 1-57675-301-8 (2004)

External links

• Anti-subsidy Congressional testimony
• Articles & sources from an anti-subsidy perspective
• Anti-subsidy information from NewRules.org
• A corporate welfare example from N.Y.
• A pro-subsidy perspective
• Interview with Samuel Edward Konkin III - 3 types of capitalists, categorizes State support of businesses as dangerous

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