. . . for something completely different. . .
". . . The U.S. federal government is facing the largest debt in its history – over $15.5 trillion. (How much is that? If you had $15 trillion and spent $15 million every day since Jesus was born, you would still have $4,500,000,000 today.) The interest on that debt is crushing. The annual interest payment on the debt is now $474 billion – more than it costs for the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, State, Transportation, and Treasury, and the Environmental Protection Agency, combined. Imagine what could be done with that money were it not being wasted as interest payments on debt irresponsibly built up over the years.
Politicians proclaim to be concerned about the debt, while in the next breath they defend the creation or extension of policies that actually add to the outrageous debt burden. Much of that addition is for corporate interests which are being provided favors by the recipients of their campaign contributions or the targets of their lobbyist blitzes.
Corporate welfare is not need-based and is largely embedded in the tax code. It manifests in the form of tax expenditures, deductions, credits, bail-outs, guaranteed and low interest loans, and subsidies. Corporate welfare benefits the wealthiest corporations, which also happen to be among the biggest campaign donors to candidates of both Republicans and Democrats. Many of these benefits continue in perpetuity until Congress votes to end them, which is not likely to happen because to end the benefits would be adverse to the interest of corporations to whom members of Congress and the President often feel indebted.
Some of these corporate welfare programs actually promote degradation of the environment while privatizing profits and socializing risks. The following are examples of wasteful and, in some instances, environmentally harmful subsidies.
The 1872 Mining Act allows companies to extract billions of dollars worth of resources from public land at $5 per acre while paying no royalty fees. (See Rocky Anderson’s column on this issue, published in The Enterprise in February 1998. http://www.voterocky.org/the_mining_law_of_1872)
The Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Crop subsidies waste billions of dollars annually supporting a small number of corporate farming operations that encourage over-production and in some cases harm the environment.
The Market Access Program subsidizes overseas ad campaigns that benefit profitable multinational corporations.
The Department of Agriculture’s Crop Insurance program benefits the largest agricultural producers and guarantees a return on even marginal land, providing an incentive to plant in environmentally sensitive areas. Claims are projected to rise due to weather issues related to climate change.
Essential Air Service provides a subsidy to airlines that operate flights from non-hub airports that are 90 miles or more from the nearest large or medium hub airport. It essentially subsidizes flights for a relatively small number of passengers and contributes to air pollution.
It appears American citizens actually pay corporations to log on public lands. However, because of the reporting system implemented by the Department of Agriculture, it is impossible to evaluate the cost to taxpayers.
The Forest Service and BLM Public Land Grazing Program benefits only 2% of the nation’s livestock producers, yet cost taxpayers approximately $136 million in 2004 to operate. The program earned only $21 million. The below-cost grazing fees encourage overgrazing and result in extensive and severe environmental damage.
The Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services Program spends millions of dollars each year to kill predators at the request of ranchers, which leads to the degradation of ecosystems that rely on healthy predator populations.
The Army Corps of Engineers is often involved in projects that are not based on national priorities and are often economically unjustified and environmentally harmful.
Taxpayers subsidize lending for American corporations that export and foreign firms that import through the Export-Import Bank, leaving taxpayers at risk for potentially bad loans.
Subsidies to coal, oil, and gas companies totaled approximately $72 billion from 2002-2008, notwithstanding that the fossil fuel industry is a mature, developed industry not in need of government assistance.
General Electric, which made $14.2 billion in profits in 2010, paid no corporate income taxes in 2011 as a result of “innovative accounting” and fierce lobbying. . . "
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