Paging Fix the Debt and Chuck Todd
by David Atkins
If Fix the Debt and Chuck Todd really want to reduce government deficits even more than the President has already done, the bloated defense budget would be the place to start. But if that’s entirely too politically difficult, then perhaps they should look here:
State and local governments have awarded at least $110 billion in taxpayer subsidies to business, with 3 of every 4 dollars going to fewer than 1,000 big corporations, the most thorough analysis to date of corporate welfare revealed today.
Boeing ranks first, with 137 subsidies totaling $13.2 billion, followed by Alcoa at $5.6 billion, Intel at $3.9 billion, General Motors at $3.5 billion and Ford Motor at $2.5 billion, the new report by the nonprofit research organization Good Jobs First shows.
Dow Chemical had the most subsidies, 410 totaling $1.4 billion, followed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire-Hathaway holding company, with 310 valued at $1.1 billion.
The figures were compiled from disclosures made by state and local government agencies that subsidize companies in all sorts of ways, including cash giveaways, building and land transfers, tax abatements and steep discounts on electric and water bills.
That’s some big money. And those numbers actually understate the case. David Cay Johnston explains why in the full story.
Obsessing over deficits at a time of record corporate profits, rising inequality and declining wages is such bad public policy that it can only be construed as ideological perversion or blatant corruption.
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