Corporate Welfare
Robbing from the Poor to Give to the Rich
- How much does the government really spend on welfare? (and by “the government” we mean taxpayers)
- Social welfare: $59 billion
- Corporate subsidies: $92 billion
- $70 billion goes to gas and oil industries
- The numbers behind corporate welfare expenses
- $2.1 billion – amount of tax dollars lost due to loophole of classifying earned income as capital gains
- $58 billion – amount given to corporations in tax breaks for offshore profits
- $59 billion – amount of taxes avoided by wealthy taxpayers
- $700 billion – amount given in bank bailouts considered corporate welfare because there were no strings attached / no accountability for spending it
- $9 trillion – low and no interest loans to major corporations and banks from the Federal Reserve
encourages large companies to conceal their profits in offshore accounts
capital gains and dividends are taxed at only 15% and provides the bulk of new wealth
The prize for worst thing to buy with welfare money goes to…
Subsidies for private aircraft
those will private planes are able to:
- use accelerated tax write-offs
- claim that the aircraft is for security – avoiding personal taxes
- use air traffic control funded by ticket purchases for commercial flights
Subsidies for private equity and hedge funds
- “carried interest” allows those earning the most to categorize their income as capital gains
- capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate (max. 23.8% vs. max. 39.6% for earned income)
Subsidies for yachts
- Mortgage-interest deductions now also cover the purchase of yachts and beach homes
- The purpose of deductions was to encourage middle class home purchases
- Now we’re also helping the wealthy to keep their yachts 🙂
- Subsidies for corporations from cities, counties and states
- $80 billion a year in subsidies to companies to persuade them to operate locally
- funded by individual cities, counties and states
- the companies often take the subsidies and relocate their facilities elsewhere
Examples of Companies on Welfare:
Walmart
- According to a report from U of C Berkeley Walmart’s low employee wages are costing $86 million in publicly funded gov’t assistance programs
- Walmart justifies low wages with low prices, but this means giving the extra responsibility to taxpayers
- Walmart also has it’s own publicly funded control tower at Rogers Municipal Airport in AK
the tower cost $81,000 to operate in 2013
Big oil companies – BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, Shell and Chevron
- $4 billion in tax breaks annually
These breaks are meant to flow down to consumers yet prices remain on the rise
in one year, there was an 11% price hike on gasoline - 2012: the average American household reached a 4 year spending high of about $3k on gasoline
- Oil companies are still making record profits
- 2012: oil companies earned $118 billion in profits with $72 billion in cash reserves
Defunding some welfare programs sounds like a great idea. Let’s start with the most expensive…
Sources:
- https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/03-7
- http://ctj.org/pdf/revenueraisers2012.pdf
- http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/01/news/economy/fed_reserve_data_release/index.htm
- http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/opinion/kristof-a-nation-of-takers.html?_r=0
- http://www.taxpayer.net/media-center/article/4-examples-of-corporate-welfare-in-action