corporate welfare Archives

The Shocking Cost of Corporate Welfare

Republicans never miss the opportunity to tell you that poor people are leaches, sucking the life from the economy with their greed through the welfare system. But they never mention their millionaire friends and businesses, who are milking the system even more than the pocket change going to the poor.

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.

New Report: Corporate Welfare Turns Rich People into Lazy Moochers

Contrary to conventional wisdom, tax breaks and corporate welfare structures turn the ultra-rich into lazy moochers, and not motivated corporate citizens.

By monitoring the daily lives of CEOs heading America’s largest tax dodgers, the Society for Motivated Americans (SMA) was able to conclude that extreme corporate welfare benefits make the super-rich lazy and complacent.

“Most of them spend an inordinate amount of time hobnobbing in lavish resorts and playing Candy Crush on corporate jets,” said Jeff Zebo of SMA.

Zebo provided Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan as a prime example. BOA is the nation’s leading tax dodger, having paid zero taxes in 2010 – a $1.9 billion tax break – after receiving more than a trillion dollars in bailout money. “Has this made Moynihan motivated?” asked Zebo. “No – the man can barely pay attention on the job. And he sleeps all the time – employees sometimes stumble into his office and find him face down on the desk mumbling about things like milk shakes and Aruba.”

Zebo cited Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein as another prime example. Goldman Sachs is the second-largest recipient of corporate welfare, paying zero in taxes in 2010 despite profits of $2.3 billion. “He sits around his mansion most days eating chips, drinking Belgian beer and taking conference calls in a bathrobe while secretly playing Call of Duty,” said Zebo. “And when he’s forced to leave his house, it’s clear he just wants back on his couch.”

According to the SMA study, such examples are rampant in the corporate community, blowing apart the long-held notion (among the super-rich and Republicans) that tax breaks make the one percent motivated to further produce.