While considerable political heat is directed at poor welfare recipients receiving taxpayer money, more than three times that amount is paid in welfare to wealthy corporations, according to a new Essential Information study released by Ralph Nader.
A total of 153 federal programs totalling $167.2 billion, a cost of $1,388 for each taxpayer this year, benefitted corporations, according to the study, Aid for Dependent Corporations (AFDC). By contrast, Aid to Families with Dependent Children and other forms of social welfare, including food stamps, housing assistance, and child nutrition, cost $50 billion a year, or $415 for individual taxpayers, the study said.
"Welfare payments and tax breaks for allegedly 'free market' wealthy corporations must be examined and curtailed before payments to needy families and children are slashed," Ralph Nader said about the study.
Corporate welfare includes direct payments to companies, provision of public goods and services without adequate compensation from companies, federal purchases from companies of goods and services at more than market value, tax breaks for businesses, and business exemptions from laws. Figures in the study came from ten public sources, including the Congressional Budget Office, General Accounting Office reports, and the Joint Committee on Taxation.
"It is unseemly for our elected officials to balk at aid for dependent children without comparing aid for dependent corporations," said Janice Sheilds, a researcher who prepared the study for Nader.
U.S. tax dollars go to a variety of programs that will aid dependent corporations in fiscal year 1995, ending September 30,1995. For example, Cargill, Inc., which has a net worth of $3.6 billion, has received $1.29 billion in Export Enhancement Program bonuses since the program's inception in 1985. The federal government continues to generate losses on sales of timber from national forests to private companies and allows ranchers to graze cattle on public lands but charges fees that cover only 25% of costs. U.S. companies with foreign operations are expected to indefinitely defer earnings from taxation in the United States to avoid paying $1.1 billion in U.S. taxes in fiscal year 1995 - effectively receiving an interest-free loan from the U.S. Treasury.
[Copies of Aid for Dependent Corporations are available for $10.00 from the Center for Study of Responsive Law, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036, Telephone 202-387-8034. Article reprinted with permission.]
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1995