1. The reach for other peoples money extends far into corporate America, to upper income owners of beach homes, affluent farmers, public employees, and entitled yuppies.
2. Hollywood is a major moocher!
a. A tax credit so the industry will film in Massachusetts? 222 jobs were created in 2009 under the program meant to encourage filmmakers to shoot in Massachusetts at a cost of roughly $325,000 apiece. Is the Massachusetts film tax credit worth the cost? - The Angle - Boston.com
b. An Associated Press review of a Department of Revenue report on the tax credit program found that $82 million of the $330 million in film spending eligible for credits in 2009 went to pay the salaries of nonresident actors earning more than $1 million. Mass. tax credits used to cover movie stars' wages - Boston.com
c. The subsidies rose to $1.5 billion by 2010. And Massachusetts is only one of the 43 states offering such inducements. Even California kicks in $100 million.
3. Now, get this- glitterati welfare: states offer refundable tax credits which can be paid to the producer whether or not the film has a tax liability. Example: if the state offers a film tax credit of $100,000, but the film only has a tax liability of $50,000, the state pays the full $100,000 to the producer. Even better- transferable tax credits allow the producer to sell the excess credits to a third party. Get it? The state transfers money from waitresses and truck drivers to celebrity moviemakers.
Sykes, A Nation of Moochers, p. 99.
4. According to John Stossel, the biggest welfare queens are farmers. Agricultural subsidies including direct payments, marketing loans, counter-cyclical payments, conservation subsidies, insurance, disaster aid, export subsidies, and agricultural research, taken together, have become one of the largest middle- and upper-class welfare programs in the nation.
a. Washington paid out a quarter of a trillion dollars in federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2009, but to characterize the programs as either a big government bailout or another form of welfare would be manifestly unfair to bailouts and welfare.
Governments Continuing Bailout of Corporate Agriculture | Environmental Working Group
b. From 1995 to 2009, the largest and wealthiest top 10 percent of farm program recipients collected 74 percent of all farm subsidies, with an average total payment over 15 years of $445,127 per recipient hardly a safety net for small struggling farmers. The bottom 80 percent of farmers received an average total payment of just $8,682 per recipient. Ibid.
5. payments have grown into an even larger subsidy that benefits millionaire landowners, foreign speculators and absentee landlords, as well as farmers. Most of the money goes to real farmers who grow crops on their land, but they are under no obligation to grow the crop being subsidized. They can switch to a different crop or raise cattle or even grow a stand of timber -- and still get the government payments.
The cash comes with so few restrictions that subdivision developers who buy farmland advertise that homeowners can collect farm subsidies on their new back yards. The payments now account for nearly half of the nation's expanding agricultural subsidy system, a complex web that has little basis in fairness or efficiency. What began in the 1930s as a limited safety net for working farmers has swollen into a far-flung infrastructure of entitlements that has cost $172 billion over the past decade. In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.
Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm
Again:
In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.
6. But if you want to really make your blood boil, check out the transfer payments to owners of beachfront properties. Between 1979 and 2005, Alabamas Dauphin Island was hammered six times by hurricanes, which destroyed some five hundred pricey vacation home and rental properties. Owners kept rebuilding, and the government paid more than $21 million in insurance. Repeat Claims Strain Federal Flood Insurance'
a. The flood program pays every claim, doesnt raise premiums after multiple claims, and promises to keep doing so.
b. A USA TODAY review of FEMA records found that the owners of 19,600 homes and commercial buildings worth $25,000 or more have collected insurance payments that exceed the value of their property. The records exclude property addresses. In Fairhope, Ala., the owner of a $153,000 house has received $2.3 million in claims. A $116,000 Houston home has received $1.6 million. The payments are for damage to homes and what's inside .USA TODAY also found that the owners of 370,000 second homes and rental houses get huge insurance discounts. Wealthy resort areas such as Hilton Head Island, S.C., and Longboat Key, Naples and Sanibel, Fla., have some of the largest numbers of second homes and rentals getting the discounts. USATODAY.com
This is where we have to demand President Romney begin!
Smaller government means smaller for all.
2. Hollywood is a major moocher!
a. A tax credit so the industry will film in Massachusetts? 222 jobs were created in 2009 under the program meant to encourage filmmakers to shoot in Massachusetts at a cost of roughly $325,000 apiece. Is the Massachusetts film tax credit worth the cost? - The Angle - Boston.com
b. An Associated Press review of a Department of Revenue report on the tax credit program found that $82 million of the $330 million in film spending eligible for credits in 2009 went to pay the salaries of nonresident actors earning more than $1 million. Mass. tax credits used to cover movie stars' wages - Boston.com
c. The subsidies rose to $1.5 billion by 2010. And Massachusetts is only one of the 43 states offering such inducements. Even California kicks in $100 million.
3. Now, get this- glitterati welfare: states offer refundable tax credits which can be paid to the producer whether or not the film has a tax liability. Example: if the state offers a film tax credit of $100,000, but the film only has a tax liability of $50,000, the state pays the full $100,000 to the producer. Even better- transferable tax credits allow the producer to sell the excess credits to a third party. Get it? The state transfers money from waitresses and truck drivers to celebrity moviemakers.
Sykes, A Nation of Moochers, p. 99.
4. According to John Stossel, the biggest welfare queens are farmers. Agricultural subsidies including direct payments, marketing loans, counter-cyclical payments, conservation subsidies, insurance, disaster aid, export subsidies, and agricultural research, taken together, have become one of the largest middle- and upper-class welfare programs in the nation.
a. Washington paid out a quarter of a trillion dollars in federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2009, but to characterize the programs as either a big government bailout or another form of welfare would be manifestly unfair to bailouts and welfare.
Governments Continuing Bailout of Corporate Agriculture | Environmental Working Group
b. From 1995 to 2009, the largest and wealthiest top 10 percent of farm program recipients collected 74 percent of all farm subsidies, with an average total payment over 15 years of $445,127 per recipient hardly a safety net for small struggling farmers. The bottom 80 percent of farmers received an average total payment of just $8,682 per recipient. Ibid.
5. payments have grown into an even larger subsidy that benefits millionaire landowners, foreign speculators and absentee landlords, as well as farmers. Most of the money goes to real farmers who grow crops on their land, but they are under no obligation to grow the crop being subsidized. They can switch to a different crop or raise cattle or even grow a stand of timber -- and still get the government payments.
The cash comes with so few restrictions that subdivision developers who buy farmland advertise that homeowners can collect farm subsidies on their new back yards. The payments now account for nearly half of the nation's expanding agricultural subsidy system, a complex web that has little basis in fairness or efficiency. What began in the 1930s as a limited safety net for working farmers has swollen into a far-flung infrastructure of entitlements that has cost $172 billion over the past decade. In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.
Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm
Again:
In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.
6. But if you want to really make your blood boil, check out the transfer payments to owners of beachfront properties. Between 1979 and 2005, Alabamas Dauphin Island was hammered six times by hurricanes, which destroyed some five hundred pricey vacation home and rental properties. Owners kept rebuilding, and the government paid more than $21 million in insurance. Repeat Claims Strain Federal Flood Insurance'
a. The flood program pays every claim, doesnt raise premiums after multiple claims, and promises to keep doing so.
b. A USA TODAY review of FEMA records found that the owners of 19,600 homes and commercial buildings worth $25,000 or more have collected insurance payments that exceed the value of their property. The records exclude property addresses. In Fairhope, Ala., the owner of a $153,000 house has received $2.3 million in claims. A $116,000 Houston home has received $1.6 million. The payments are for damage to homes and what's inside .USA TODAY also found that the owners of 370,000 second homes and rental houses get huge insurance discounts. Wealthy resort areas such as Hilton Head Island, S.C., and Longboat Key, Naples and Sanibel, Fla., have some of the largest numbers of second homes and rentals getting the discounts. USATODAY.com
This is where we have to demand President Romney begin!
Smaller government means smaller for all.
