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
-
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
Notes
- ^ http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Nader/CutCorpWelfare_Nader.html
- ^ http://www.nader.org/releases/63099.html
- ^ 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
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