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fakename
Guest
Is it harder to cut corporate welfare, historically, than anything else (from a budget point of view)?
Is it harder to cut corporate welfare, historically, than anything else?
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ProVobis
Guest
Very good question. It seems as if the 1913 Federal Reserve Act has laid the foundation for an economy which expands or contracts based on how much the banks (and now companies with a banking arm) take in from the Fed. I would say this is very difficult to stop.
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fakename
Guest
It’s strange, because people always cut welfare (which is weird too, since I thought welfare spending was always guaranteed while military spending was not) but there is never enough time to cut subsidies. Then again, isn’t welfare dependent on subsidies to some degree (the subsidized farms dump their products on the welfare recipients and if a business loses subsidies it might have to fire people who would then turn to welfare)? But that leads to a greater conundrum, for if people want to cut spending, then they would especially like to cut business welfare since this usually is the cause of other welfare and if people want welfare then what keeps them from wanting business welfare?
But whatever the case, I think that it is darn strange that business subsidies seem to never decline. Are they just really good lobbyists?
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austenbosten
Guest
I don’t care, cut it all.
Charity Not Subsidies.
Charity Not Subsidies.
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jay29
Guest
I wish entitlement programs would go back to what they originally were: temporary and not a lifestyle.
Welfare has been a general failure all around because there is no incentive to get off of it.
Welfare has been a general failure all around because there is no incentive to get off of it.
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
I have a pretty good idea of what welfare is. What is ‘corporate welfare’?
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austenbosten
Guest
Well the Leftists want to say tax cuts and tax credits…and that’s not true and they are idolatrous morons.
However there is such thing as ‘Corporate Welfare’
- TARP
- Farm Subsidies
- Energy Subsidies
- Business grants
- No-bid Defense contracts
- NASA
- Housing grants
- Amtrak
- CPB
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
I disagree. Isn’t TARP more a government loan program than it is welfare?
Aren’t farm subsidies paid to farmers who are working to provide a crop? Payment to people who are working does not sound like welfare.
Energy subsidies appear to be market manipulation designed for the long term benefit of energy consumers, not welfare.
Business grants come with conditions on value delivered, don’t they. That’s like getting paid to do a job, not welfare.
No-bid Defense contracts are a way of making government more efficient (that is their justification, anyway. I agree it may fail occasionally). Not welfare, business must provide what they committed to in exchange for payment.
NASA? Welfare? Really?
Housing Grants appear to be designed to help those that need housing, not corporations.
Amtrak is not a private corporation, it is the government. So, it’s the government giving the government money. Not welfare.
If CPB is Public Broadcasting, then that is designed to be a public service, and is not welfare.
It appears that the definition of welfare needs to be stretched pretty far to come up with good examples of ‘corporate welfare.’
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austenbosten
Guest
If you honestly believe the banks will repay the entire $700+ Billion in 30 years…not to mention the untold Trillions that was loaned to them via the Federal Reserve.
Not when you count farm payments to pay farmers NOT to grow crops in order to keep a crop price artificially high. Also it is welfare because you are paying a farmer $10 to grow a crop that is worth $4, to sell for $5…the farmer is receiving an extra $5 for absolutely no reason.
It is welfare when you own an energy company that receives no benefits because you are not “green” or whatever the government decides.
Bwahaha! Yeah and you think you can just walk up and get disability without having to prove it?
Hahaha that’s an oxymoron…efficient government. Sure the businesses may provide, but rarely is it: on-time, on-budget and made to the specifications of the government. Let me ask you a question, you think it’s not welfare when you have to pay a restaurant $25, just to receive McDonald’s for 20-years…when you were told you were getting steak?
Yes! Really!..you don’t think the government built those rockets and computers all on their own did you?
Ahahaha! Yeah just ask all the slum lords living it high on Section 8.
Then why do they charge you for a ticket? It’s a government corporation that runs like a business. Amtrak was originally designed only to be temporary until the private companies could make a profit…but that government money was just too good…Heeeeeeeeyyyyyy, that sounds just like your typical welfare bum…the brown envelope was meant to be temporary…but it’s just too good to let go.
A public service…no one wants. Brilliant!
It appears that you don’t even know the definition of welfare.
Welfare:* financial or other assistance to an individual or family from a city, state, or national government*
Guess what all those things intail. Financial or other assistance.
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
Welfare has the contemporary connotation of being unconditional assistance. Money given without expectation of return of it, services or products. All of this assistance has conditions attached to it; the repayment of the debt, the deliver of services or goods.
If all these things are welfare, then what is not welfare? If everything the government does is assistance, then what point is this thread?
If all these things are welfare, then what is not welfare? If everything the government does is assistance, then what point is this thread?
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fakename
Guest
I think the point of calling something corporate welfare is simply to denote that a company is being given subsidies to do things that it could probably survive w/o or that a country could probably do w/o (remember the numerous mercantile/export subsidies during the 17-18th centuries?). It has the connotation of putting money into strictly optional things while not using it on things like actual welfare spending.
Therefore it’s consistent with the idea that companies are providing a service.
Therefore it’s consistent with the idea that companies are providing a service.
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
Thank you for the clarification. That clarification would then distiquish these government payments in exchange for something from real welfare, which is money paid for the sole benefit of the payee; the government expects nothing in return for it.
You seem to suggest that state welfare is not optional. If that is what you are suggesting, do you believe that to be rooted in Catholic teaching? I believe what the state is morally required to do is benefit the common good. State mandated welfare does not necessarily seem to fit that moral duty.
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fakename
Guest
I’m just saying that it is probably less optional for poor people and more optional for business. But I’m not saying that it is impossible for it to be more optional for the “little people” and less optional for business. But I have a hunch that business power in our time is behind a lot of why the “little people” get shafted and since this power is unseen, it is also assumed by the populace that free-markets are the cause of said “raw deals” and not interventions in free markets. Plus I just don’t know how easy/hard it is to cut business subsidies so I don’t have a way of testing my theory.
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
Thanks for the clarification. I have a different conclusion on the 'why’s of business subsidies.
It appears that the purpose of the vast majority of them are rooted in the common good. The government says, ‘If we can get the company to do this for the people, that would be good for the people. But, the company won’t do it because there is not money in doing it. So, we will create a financial incentive for the behavior we want out of this company, so they will do what we want them to do to benefit the people.’
I am assigning no judgement onto the general correctness of this type of government intervention, just stating that this appears to be the public rationale in the vast majority of cases of government finacial assistance to private companies.
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tarboy
Guest
I’ts sad that with all that spending, and war’s on poverty, it still exists.
Maybe it’s the wrong approach?
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/.../imagecache/chart_content/Welfare History.gif
Maybe it’s the wrong approach?
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/.../imagecache/chart_content/Welfare History.gif
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austenbosten
Guest
Thank you for this chart.
All you gotta do is look at Cuba and look at Cayman Islands.
Both are Caribbean
Cayman has sparse land
Cuba has much land compared to Cayman Is.
Cuba has higher population
Cayman has a smaller pop
Cayman is Capitalist (little to no welfare)
Cuba is Socialist (lots of welfare)
Cayman has virtually no taxes (no need to pay welfare)
Cuba has punitively high taxes (lots of welfare needs to be paid)
Cuba GDP per capita $5,100
Cayman GDP per capita $47,000
Apparently the nation with low taxes and little welfare provides a 922% standard of living than the nation that tries to help the poor with taxes.
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ACCT
Guest
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manualman
Guest
I can give a generally good example of idiotic corporate welfare (a somewhat dated one though).
The US Bureau of Reclamation proposes to build a series of dams in central California to capture and store rainwater during the rainy season and release it for irrigation purposes in the dry summer so that California property owners can grow feed for diary cows in otherwise untenable climate. A couple billion dollars are spent on the project and farmers are charged for the water at rates that will take 500 years to return the dam investment project.
The end result is that dairy prices across the country plunge and family farmers in Wisconsion (which has a naturally ideal dairy climate) are forced to pay Federal taxes to pay for California dams to generate irrigation water sold way below costs to said California dairies and the Wisconsin family farms go bankrupt due to the artificially depressed dairy prices.
THAT, my friends, is corporate welfare. Or another case: ethanol additives for fuel. In test laboratories, a mixture of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline burns cleaner and produces less smog than pure gas. Agribusiness conglomerates lobby the Feds (and states) to require the ethanol mixture in order to produce “cleaner air.” Meanwhile the ethanol is made from corn and the reduction in car emissions is more than 100% offset by the emissions from the farm equipment, the processing of the corn into ethanol, and the trucking and rail shipping of finished ethanol to distribution tank farms. So the giant agribusiness companies have the government force people to buy their product, but the public gets zero net benefit for their money (OK arguably the pollution is more dispersed instead of concentrated in cities - big deal).
The US Bureau of Reclamation proposes to build a series of dams in central California to capture and store rainwater during the rainy season and release it for irrigation purposes in the dry summer so that California property owners can grow feed for diary cows in otherwise untenable climate. A couple billion dollars are spent on the project and farmers are charged for the water at rates that will take 500 years to return the dam investment project.
The end result is that dairy prices across the country plunge and family farmers in Wisconsion (which has a naturally ideal dairy climate) are forced to pay Federal taxes to pay for California dams to generate irrigation water sold way below costs to said California dairies and the Wisconsin family farms go bankrupt due to the artificially depressed dairy prices.
THAT, my friends, is corporate welfare. Or another case: ethanol additives for fuel. In test laboratories, a mixture of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline burns cleaner and produces less smog than pure gas. Agribusiness conglomerates lobby the Feds (and states) to require the ethanol mixture in order to produce “cleaner air.” Meanwhile the ethanol is made from corn and the reduction in car emissions is more than 100% offset by the emissions from the farm equipment, the processing of the corn into ethanol, and the trucking and rail shipping of finished ethanol to distribution tank farms. So the giant agribusiness companies have the government force people to buy their product, but the public gets zero net benefit for their money (OK arguably the pollution is more dispersed instead of concentrated in cities - big deal).
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
There is a lot of this that does not make sense, but it is not in the way that you suggest.
Creating arable land is a benefit to the common good.
Economics will determine how this new arable land will be used (I assume that the irrigated land was not subject to use limitations requiring the growth of diary cow feed). If ‘dairy cow feed’ is the most economic purpose, that serves the public good.
‘Dairy cow feed’ is pretty much the same as saying livestock feed, which broadens its economic value. Local introduction of additional feed sources will have the affect of lowering feed prices for all, nationwide, for dairy farmers and livestock being grown for food; all share in the benefit of additional food supply in lower prices. Economics then strongly suggests that dairy and meat prices drop as a result, in the largely competitive dairy and meat markets. Consumers then benefit, and this serves the public good.
I don’t believe this to be an example of corporate welfare, either. It is the government funding infrastructure improvements for the good of all.
Your ethanol is not an example of corporate welfare either. The government was acting (perhaps misguidely, but certainly due to public insistence) for the intent of the public good. Not only does ethanol reduce emissions, it also reduces dependence on foreign oil, and replaces the consumption of non-renewable resources with consumption of renewable resources. I believe that what happened demonstrates a problem, but it is not corporate welfare. The problem this demonstrates is that government interference in markets seems to always backfire, either NOT producing the benefits desired, or by introducing serious unanticipated side effects. Markets are systems that have an almost infinite way of responding to perterbations (in reality, a good thing), which makes them almost impossible to effectively control by artificial human law.
Bottom line, these are examples of the government attempting to provide for the common good, not examples of ‘corporate welfare’.
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manualman
Guest
Not agreed. There surely were some with the intent to provide for the common good, I’ll grant you that. But there are a lot more with the intent to swindle the public for the benefit of favored campaign contributors and friends. No amount of hand waving from you or anybody will alter the foolishness of spending a billion dollars on a dam project, getting back only a few million in revenue and putting naturally viable farms out of business in the process. It’s graft and corruption, not public benefit. It got done because the Senators from California met with their heavy contributors and received their marching orders. They made deals to fund the pet projects of other Senators if they’d fund theirs and off we went: corporate welfare. If it truly benefitted the public overall, then the irrigation revenue should be able to cover the cost. If it can’t, it’s because it’s a payoff to political constituents.
Same goes for the ethanol. Studies have shown that corn ethanol (other sources hold more promise) has very little net reduction on oil imports due to the energy required to plant, harvest, transport, distill, refine, transport and distribute the finished ethanol (until recentl efficiency gains, it created a net INCREASE in total oil usage). Fuel goes into each one of those activities and by the time it gets to the pump uses up most of the gas ‘saved’ in the E10 blend. Account for the lower gas mileage people get on E10 versus regular gas and there is almost no net reduction of oil usage.
Sorry, but that’s corporate welfare. I have to wonder if those arguing that it isn’t don’t work for ADM…
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