The inept and corrupt federal government

[P@triot]

More federal corruption:

6 Alarming Findings From House Planned Parenthood Probe

 

[owebo]

More federal corruption:

6 Alarming Findings From House Planned Parenthood Probe

I question if fascist democrats are even human any more....

"It’s none of my concern. It doesn’t bother me,” the Planned Parenthood executive said, according to the panel’s report.

 

[ScienceRocks]

More federal corruption:

6 Alarming Findings From House Planned Parenthood Probe

I question if fascist democrats are even human any more....

"It’s none of my concern. It doesn’t bother me,” the Planned Parenthood executive said, according to the panel’s report.

Sad.

 

[rightwinger]

It is fucking amazing how clueless the loserterians really are on the issue of the constitution. They seem to think that the constitution was only made to govern in the freaking 18th century...Nutz.

Not nearly as amazing as how clueless you Dumbocrats are on the U.S. Constitution. Small, limited government is a timeless concept which is appropriate for any century.

Literally everything you nitwits desire can be achieved legally, more easily, and with bipartisan support through foundations. But you Dumbocrats are too greedy, too lazy, and too fascist to allow foundations (through free will) to achieve your agenda.

Actually, we are expected to form the right sized government. The Constitution says nothing about small, limited government

 

[ScienceRocks]

Small limited government = third world country with shitty roads, no investment and pretty much I don't give a damn about America.

You're right rightwinger as such a concept is just retarded and will just turn this country into a shit hole...One of the reasons why our infrastructure, educational system and most everything these days is trialing is because of this retarded concept.

 

[rightwinger]

More federal corruption:

6 Alarming Findings From House Planned Parenthood Probe

Still trying to sell that discredited fetal tissue story?

It was investigated and PP was found to be in compliance with existing laws.

Guess what? Fetal tissue is critical to medical research and saves lives

 

[rightwinger]

Small limited government = third world country with shitty roads, no investment and pretty much I don't give a damn about America.

You're right rightwinger as such a concept is just retarded and will just turn this country into a shit hole...One of the reasons why our infrastructure, educational system and most everything these days is trialing is because of this retarded concept.

I agree

Why would anyone want small, limited government?

No schools, no safe water, privately owned roads, no parks ......everything in the country goes to the highest bidder

 

[Iceweasel]

Inept and corrupt federal government is redundant. People addicted to other people's money are no longer mentally stable. They need increases just to feel normal.

 

[Seawytch]

Small limited government = third world country with shitty roads, no investment and pretty much I don't give a damn about America.

You're right rightwinger as such a concept is just retarded and will just turn this country into a shit hole...One of the reasons why our infrastructure, educational system and most everything these days is trialing is because of this retarded concept.

I agree

Why would anyone want small, limited government?

No schools, no safe water, privately owned roads, no parks ......everything in the country goes to the highest bidder

Government needs to be big enough to respond to the needs of the people. The government is supposed to do the heavy lifting that individuals alone can't do. By the way..."the government" is the people.

We the People of the United States...

 

[rightwinger]

Small limited government = third world country with shitty roads, no investment and pretty much I don't give a damn about America.

You're right rightwinger as such a concept is just retarded and will just turn this country into a shit hole...One of the reasons why our infrastructure, educational system and most everything these days is trialing is because of this retarded concept.

I agree

Why would anyone want small, limited government?

No schools, no safe water, privately owned roads, no parks ......everything in the country goes to the highest bidder

Government needs to be big enough to respond to the needs of the people. The government is supposed to do the heavy lifting that individuals alone can't do. By the way..."the government" is the people.

We the People of the United States...

Exactly

Government is not the enemy....they are us
If they are not doing the job, we have only ourselves to blame

 

[owebo]

It is fucking amazing how clueless the loserterians really are on the issue of the constitution. They seem to think that the constitution was only made to govern in the freaking 18th century...Nutz.

Not nearly as amazing as how clueless you Dumbocrats are on the U.S. Constitution. Small, limited government is a timeless concept which is appropriate for any century.

Literally everything you nitwits desire can be achieved legally, more easily, and with bipartisan support through foundations. But you Dumbocrats are too greedy, too lazy, and too fascist to allow foundations (through free will) to achieve your agenda.

Actually, we are expected to form the right sized government. The Constitution says nothing about small, limited government

Actually, the Constitution only speaks to a small limited government....if you understood what it said....

 

[owebo]

Small limited government = third world country with shitty roads, no investment and pretty much I don't give a damn about America.

You're right rightwinger as such a concept is just retarded and will just turn this country into a shit hole...One of the reasons why our infrastructure, educational system and most everything these days is trialing is because of this retarded concept.

I agree

Why would anyone want small, limited government?

No schools, no safe water, privately owned roads, no parks ......everything in the country goes to the highest bidder

Government needs to be big enough to respond to the needs of the people. The government is supposed to do the heavy lifting that individuals alone can't do. By the way..."the government" is the people.

We the People of the United States...

Exactly

Government is not the enemy....they are us
If they are not doing the job, we have only ourselves to blame

No, we haven't been doing our job....

 

[Iceweasel]

Small limited government = third world country with shitty roads, no investment and pretty much I don't give a damn about America.

You're right rightwinger as such a concept is just retarded and will just turn this country into a shit hole...One of the reasons why our infrastructure, educational system and most everything these days is trialing is because of this retarded concept.

I agree

Why would anyone want small, limited government?

No schools, no safe water, privately owned roads, no parks ......everything in the country goes to the highest bidder

Government needs to be big enough to respond to the needs of the people. The government is supposed to do the heavy lifting that individuals alone can't do. By the way..."the government" is the people.

We the People of the United States...

We the people, not we the government. You fuck that up every time. Micromanaging our lives is not responding to our needs. You don't even know what the words need means. You think it means desires.

No schools or water? That was just stupid. The government doesn't build private roads btw, hint hint! I don't want/need government wiping my ass. Liberals do so speak for yourselves.

 

[Seawytch]

Small limited government = third world country with shitty roads, no investment and pretty much I don't give a damn about America.

You're right rightwinger as such a concept is just retarded and will just turn this country into a shit hole...One of the reasons why our infrastructure, educational system and most everything these days is trialing is because of this retarded concept.

I agree

Why would anyone want small, limited government?

No schools, no safe water, privately owned roads, no parks ......everything in the country goes to the highest bidder

Government needs to be big enough to respond to the needs of the people. The government is supposed to do the heavy lifting that individuals alone can't do. By the way..."the government" is the people.

We the People of the United States...

We the people, not we the government. You fuck that up every time. Micromanaging our lives is not responding to our needs. You don't even know what the words need means. You think it means desires.

I fuck that up every time? Sorry, aptly named, I get it right. Guess the quote:

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

No schools or water? That was just stupid. The government doesn't build private roads btw, hint hint! I don't want/need government wiping my ass. Liberals do so speak for yourselves.

Gosh, you are sooooo smart. "the government doesn't build private roads". Any other "no shit sherlock" items you want to share? Do ursine mammals also evacuate in sylvan environments? And how many "private roads" are there? On your drive to work, how many "private roads" do you traverse?

 

[Windship]

The federal government has reached levels of ineptitude and corruption the likes of which have never been seen before by man. They are nearly $20 trillion in debt, have far exceeded the 18 enumerated powers they were authorized to oversee, and are now oppressing the very people they are supposed to answer to and represent.

yes, the government is corrupt. Only after corporate corrupted them. You know....your name says patriot but there aint nothin; patriotic about you. Arent you one of the fucking traitors that hate Freedom and Democracy like rustic?

 

[Windship]

Ok, ya wanna talk scandals??...then lets talk scandals.
The 25 Most Vicious Iraq War Profiteers

 

[Windship]

$1 Trillion Trove of Rare Minerals Revealed Under Afghanistan
By Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor | September 4, 2014 07:35am ET

Rare Earths, clockwise from top center: praseodymium, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, samarium and gadolinium.
Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture / Peggy Greb


Despite being one of the poorest nations in the world, Afghanistan may be sitting on one of the richest troves of minerals in the world, valued at nearly $1 trillion, according to U.S. scientists.

Afghanistan, a country nearly the size of Texas, is loaded with minerals deposited by the violent collision of the Indian subcontinent with Asia. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began inspecting what mineral resources Afghanistan had after U.S.-led forces drove the Taliban from power in the country in 2004. As it turns out, the Afghanistan Geological Survey staff had kept Soviet geological maps and reports up to 50 years old or more that hinted at a geological gold mine.

In 2006, U.S. researchers flew airborne missions to conduct magnetic, gravity and hyperspectral surveys over Afghanistan. The magnetic surveys probed for iron-bearing minerals up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) below the surface, while the gravity surveys tried to identify sediment-filled basins potentially rich in oil and gas. The hyperspectral survey looked at the spectrum of light reflected off rocks to identify the light signatures unique to each mineral. More than 70 percent of the country was mapped in just two months. [Facts About Rare Earth Minerals (Infographic)]

The surveys verified all the major Soviet finds. Afghanistan may hold 60 million tons of copper, 2.2 billion tons of iron ore, 1.4 million tons of rare earth elements such as lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, and lodes of aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, mercury and lithium. For instance, the Khanneshin carbonatite deposit in Afghanistan's Helmand province is valued at $89 billion, full as it is with rare earth elements.

"Afghanistan is a country that is very, very rich in mineral resources," Jack Medlin, a geologist and program manager of the U.S. Geological Survey's Afghanistan project, told Live Science. "We've identified the potential for at least 24 world-class mineral deposits." The scientists' work was detailed in the Aug. 15 issue of the journal Science.

Afghanistan treasure maps

In 2010, the USGS data attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense's Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), which is entrusted with rebuilding Afghanistan. The task force valued Afghanistan's mineral resources at $908 billion, while the Afghan government's estimate is $3 trillion. [Gold Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Gold Mining?]

Over the past four years, USGS and TFBSO have embarked on dozens of excursions in the war zone to collect and analyze mineral samples to confirm the aerial findings.

"Performing an assessment of mineral resources in Afghanistan is not like going out in the United States and doing normal field work," Medlin said. "What becomes very, very obvious in Afghanistan is the huge amount of pre-planning that has to take place in order to visit any site in that country, such as who is going to provide security and how much security is needed. You also have to plan how you are actually going to get to some place, as for most of the sites in Afghanistan, you cannot drive there — our work involved helicopters, and for our safety, we couldn't be on the ground very long to get samples."

The researchers' work has helped develop what are essentially treasure maps that let mining companies know what minerals are there, how much is there, and where they are, all to attract bids on the rights to the deposits. The Afghan government has already signed a 30-year, $3 billion contract with the China Metallurgical Group, a state-owned mining enterprise based in Beijing, to exploit the Mes Aynak copper deposit, and awarded mining rights for the country's biggest iron deposit to a group of Indian state-run and private companies. [Is China Mining a Rare Earth Monopoly? Op-Ed]

"These resources provide the potential for Afghanistan to develop its economy, to create jobs and build infrastructure, as it goes into the future," Medlin said.

The mineral riches could lift Afghanistan out of poverty and fight crime and terrorism, said Said Mirzad, co-coordinator of the U.S. Geological Survey's Afghanistan program.

"Terrorists in Afghanistan exploited the misery of the local population," Mirzad said. "If you give the population jobs, if they could bring bread to the table, if they had something to defend, then the terrorists, who are very few in number, won't have sway."

Challenges to mining

However, developing a mining industry in Afghanistan faces major challenges. "One of the biggest challenges is security," Medlin said. "Another challenge is the lack of infrastructure. We're talking about access to energy, which is required to develop mines. We're talking access to roads, railroads and so forth. We're also talking about access to water, which is needed in most mining operations. It's all a big challenge, but it's doable. It won't happen overnight, but it's doable."

 

[Windship]

Lets talk scandals. Wanna talk corporate welfare?.....ok...no problem.

• 

CLASS WAR
10 Taxpayer Handouts to the Super Rich That Will Make Your Blood Boil
Tom Cahill | October 28, 2015
The next time you hear someone complain about how the poor get “all this free stuff,” show them this.

FacebookTwitter


The next time you hear someone complain about how the poor get “all this free stuff,” show them this.

A small number of incredibly wealthy Americans are ridiculing Bernie Sanders’ base for wanting “free stuff” when the costliest programs are, by far, corporate welfare and entitlements for the top 1 percent. Fox News has been working hard to tear down Sanders’ proposals to provide Medicare for all, institute tuition-free public college, boost infrastructure spending, and expand Social Security.

“That’s not fiscally possible unless the federal government starts seizing private assets,” said Bill O’Reilly.

But O’Reilly is wrong. The money for Sanders’ platform can easily come from eliminating the costliest entitlement programs for the top 1 percent and multinational corporations. Here’s a breakdown of the most superfluous giveaways to the rich and how much they cost the rest of us:

1. TAX BREAKS FOR OBSCENE CEO BONUSES ($7 BILLION/YEAR)
Currently, the biggest corporations are exploiting a 20-year-old loophole that allows them to write off inflated compensation packages for CEOs, billing stock options, and performance-based bonuses to taxpayers. In 2010, the Economic Policy Institute found out that the biggest corporations cost Americans $7 billion by writing off inflated executive pay. Between 2007 and 2010, this loophole accounted for more than $30 billion in corporate welfare. According to The Guardian, fast food industry CEOs cost taxpayers $64 million through this loophole.

That $7 billion could singlehandedly fund the annual budget for the National Science Foundation — which, as I recently reported for US Uncut, funds 11,000 scientific research projects each year and has funded 26 Nobel laureates in the last 5 years.

2. TAX CUTS FOR LUXURY CORPORATE JETS ($300 MILLION/YEAR)
Currently, corporations can claim a huge tax deduction every year by writing off purchases of corporate jets, lavish cars, and chauffeurs as “security” for their top executives. A Bloomberg analysis from 2011 showed that these tax breaks for some of the wealthiest Americans cost the rest of us $300 million each year. While that may not sound like much, that’s approximately 50 percent of the annual budget for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren that protects Americans from the financial sector’s most predatory schemes.

3. BIG OIL SUBSIDIES ($37.5 BILLION/YEAR)
According to Oil Change International (OCI), the U.S. government spends anywhere between $10 billion and $52 billion per year on corporate welfare for the fossil fuel industry — one of the wealthiest industries in the world. OCI estimated that total combined subsidies to big oil approached $37.5 billion in 2014, which includes $21 billion on production and exploration subsidies.

These subsidies alone cost more than what we currently spend on providing rental assistance for low-income families. In 2013, the department of Housing and Urban Development allocated a total of $34.3 billion toward tenant-based rental assistance ($19 billion), project-based rental assistance ($8.7 billion), and general public housing programs ($6.6 billion). These programs helped 4.5 million families — half of whom are elderly — keep a roof over their head.

4. PHARMACEUTICAL SUBSIDIES ($270 BILLION/YEAR)
As US Uncut has previously reported, the pharmaceutical industry costs taxpayers roughly $270 billion a year when accounting for the cost we pay for life-saving drugs whose patents have been bought up by Big Pharma. This is over $1,914 per household in corporate welfare. This is partly due to the Medicare Part D bill that George W. Bush signed into law in 2003, which prevents Medicare from negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. But the biggest drug companies also make a pretty penny (a combined $711 billion in profits between 2003 and 2012) by buying patents for drugs that were largely developed with taxpayer-funded research, then jacking up the price by absurd amounts after cornering the market.


Combined profits of top pharma companies. Data courtesy of healthcareforamericanow.org.

This $270 billion annual subsidy could be virtually eliminated by passing Bernie Sanders’ bill to establish a government fund that buys up drug patents as soon as they become available for purchase. Then, the government would sell drugs at-cost to save money for those who need them. The money saved could pay for the annual $270 billion in insurance costs from Obamacare that would help more Americans get access to healthcare.

5. CAPITAL GAINS TAX BREAKS ($51 BILLION/YEAR)
When anyone makes money from selling off investments, the IRS classifies that as capital gains, which are taxed at a lower rate (20 percent as of 2012) than real, actual work (35 percent). Pew Research found that 53 percent of Americans own no stock at all, and out of the 47 percent who do, the richest 5 percent own two-thirds of that stock. And only 10 percent of Americans have pensions, so stock market gains or losses don’t affect the incomes of most retirees. The Century Foundation found that the total amount of lost revenue by taxing capital gains at a lower rate than wages cost $256 billion between fiscal years 2012 and 2016, or $51 billion a year over the last 5 years. According to the Tax Policy Center, if investment income was taxed at the same rate as wages, 75 percent of that new revenue would come from the richest 0.3 percent of Americans; 92 percent of that revenue would come from those making $200,000 or more per year. The chart below shows what percentage of income each tax bracket makes from capital gains — not surprisingly, the wealthiest Americans get most of the benefit from capital gains.


Chart courtesy of The Century Foundation.

If we taxed wealth like work, the extra $51 billion per year in savings could fund two-thirds of the annual budget for food stamps.

6. CORPORATE TAX SUBSIDIES FROM STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ($80.4 BILLION/YEAR)
In 2012, the New York Times did an analysis of every existing tax break in each of the 50 states and learned that 1,874 programs cost taxpayers $80.4 billion every year for corporate welfare in their state. Compare that cost with the cost of providing tuition-free public college to every student, which The Atlantic estimated would be a mere $62.6 billion. As the chart below shows, this is actually way cheaper than what we currently spend on federal student aid.


Current cost of existing federal college aid. (courtesy of The Atlantic)

7. HANDOUTS TO BIG AG ($18 BILLION/YEAR)
Crop insurance — a program originally intended to help farmers recover from the dust bowls of the 1930s — has become a slush fund for wealthy corporate farmers who have become experts at manipulating the system for their own means. As Bloomberg reported, the median income of commercial farm households (in which farming makes up more than 50 percent of a household’s income) was $84,649 in 2011 — 70 percent more than the average American household. Farmers have learned to exploit the program by growing crops on land they know will be unproductive, then making money from insurance claims rather than crops. In 2011, 26 farmers each got an annual subsidy of $1 million, including one tomato farmer in Florida who got a $1.9 million subsidy.

This $18 billion in corporate welfare is more than NASA’s annual budget, which has hovered around the $17 billion mark since 2009.

8. WELFARE FOR WALL STREET ($83 BILLION/YEAR)
The biggest banks have grown even bigger than they were just before the 2008 financial meltdown. And due to their size, these banks are perceived as “too big to fail,” as their demise would spell doom for the US financial sector as a whole. So as these big banks grow bigger, the Federal Reserve allows them to borrow at lower interest rates than other big banks — essentially subsidizing the continued growth of the big banks. In 2013, Bloomberg estimated the ten biggest TBTF banks suck up $83 billion per year in corporate welfare.


If we were to force the big banks to borrow at the same interest rates as every other bank at a rate of $83 billion per year, that would be enough to double the current federal budgets for highway spending ($48.6 billion), Head Start ($10.1 billion), the Environmental Protection Agency ($7.89 billion), nutrition assistance for women, infants, and children ($6.2 billion), the National Parks Service ($3 billion), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ($2.39 billion), with $5 billion left over.

9. EXPORT-IMPORT BANK SUBSIDIES ($112 BILLION)
This week, the House of Representatives voted to revive the Export-Import (Ex-Im) bank, which has been maligned as a slush fund for large, multinational corporations. In its most recent year, the Ex-Im bank had a $112 billion portfolio, of which $90 billion went to multinationals. If that wasn’t bad enough, a huge portion of that money went to just 10 wealthy corporations.



According to the New York Times, the federal government spends roughly $105 billion on public K-12 schools. If we allow the Ex-Im bank to fade away, the money formerly set aside for corporate subsidies could instead double that investment in public education.

10. FEDERAL CONTRACTS FOR THE TOP 200 BIGGEST COMPANIES ($880 BILLION/YEAR)
The biggest 200 corporations have an excessively unfair advantage over their competitors due to their influence in Washington. According to the Sunlight Foundation, the top 200 companies spent a combined $5.8 billion on lobbying Congress between 2007 and 2012. And in those same years, those companies received $4.4 trillion in federal contracts. That $4.4 trillion is $100 billion more than what the U.S. government spent on providing a basic income to the nation’s 50 million Social Security recipients. This chart shows how much the top ten corporations spent on lobbying and how much they got in return:



The combined cost of these 10 corporate welfare programs is $1.539 trillion per year. The three main programs needy families depend upon — Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ($17.3 billion), food stamps ($74 billion), and the Earned Income Tax Credit ($67.2 billion) — cost just $158.5 billion in total. This means we spend ten times as much on corporate welfare and handouts to the top 1 percent than we do on welfare for working families struggling to make ends meet.







Tom Cahill is a writer for US Uncut based in the Pacific Northwest. He specializes in coverage of political, economic, and environmental news. You can contact Tom via email at [email protected].

 

[Windship]

Not to mention the 21 tusd given to the banks since 2008. That "t" means "trillion".
You want to complain like a fucking little sissy about 100,000usd? No, it is not right but there are more important issues if the issues are in fact what you seek.

 

[owebo]

Lets talk scandals. Wanna talk corporate welfare?.....ok...no problem.

• 

CLASS WAR
10 Taxpayer Handouts to the Super Rich That Will Make Your Blood Boil
Tom Cahill | October 28, 2015
The next time you hear someone complain about how the poor get “all this free stuff,” show them this.

FacebookTwitter


The next time you hear someone complain about how the poor get “all this free stuff,” show them this.

A small number of incredibly wealthy Americans are ridiculing Bernie Sanders’ base for wanting “free stuff” when the costliest programs are, by far, corporate welfare and entitlements for the top 1 percent. Fox News has been working hard to tear down Sanders’ proposals to provide Medicare for all, institute tuition-free public college, boost infrastructure spending, and expand Social Security.

“That’s not fiscally possible unless the federal government starts seizing private assets,” said Bill O’Reilly.

But O’Reilly is wrong. The money for Sanders’ platform can easily come from eliminating the costliest entitlement programs for the top 1 percent and multinational corporations. Here’s a breakdown of the most superfluous giveaways to the rich and how much they cost the rest of us:

1. TAX BREAKS FOR OBSCENE CEO BONUSES ($7 BILLION/YEAR)
Currently, the biggest corporations are exploiting a 20-year-old loophole that allows them to write off inflated compensation packages for CEOs, billing stock options, and performance-based bonuses to taxpayers. In 2010, the Economic Policy Institute found out that the biggest corporations cost Americans $7 billion by writing off inflated executive pay. Between 2007 and 2010, this loophole accounted for more than $30 billion in corporate welfare. According to The Guardian, fast food industry CEOs cost taxpayers $64 million through this loophole.

That $7 billion could singlehandedly fund the annual budget for the National Science Foundation — which, as I recently reported for US Uncut, funds 11,000 scientific research projects each year and has funded 26 Nobel laureates in the last 5 years.

2. TAX CUTS FOR LUXURY CORPORATE JETS ($300 MILLION/YEAR)
Currently, corporations can claim a huge tax deduction every year by writing off purchases of corporate jets, lavish cars, and chauffeurs as “security” for their top executives. A Bloomberg analysis from 2011 showed that these tax breaks for some of the wealthiest Americans cost the rest of us $300 million each year. While that may not sound like much, that’s approximately 50 percent of the annual budget for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren that protects Americans from the financial sector’s most predatory schemes.

3. BIG OIL SUBSIDIES ($37.5 BILLION/YEAR)
According to Oil Change International (OCI), the U.S. government spends anywhere between $10 billion and $52 billion per year on corporate welfare for the fossil fuel industry — one of the wealthiest industries in the world. OCI estimated that total combined subsidies to big oil approached $37.5 billion in 2014, which includes $21 billion on production and exploration subsidies.

These subsidies alone cost more than what we currently spend on providing rental assistance for low-income families. In 2013, the department of Housing and Urban Development allocated a total of $34.3 billion toward tenant-based rental assistance ($19 billion), project-based rental assistance ($8.7 billion), and general public housing programs ($6.6 billion). These programs helped 4.5 million families — half of whom are elderly — keep a roof over their head.

4. PHARMACEUTICAL SUBSIDIES ($270 BILLION/YEAR)
As US Uncut has previously reported, the pharmaceutical industry costs taxpayers roughly $270 billion a year when accounting for the cost we pay for life-saving drugs whose patents have been bought up by Big Pharma. This is over $1,914 per household in corporate welfare. This is partly due to the Medicare Part D bill that George W. Bush signed into law in 2003, which prevents Medicare from negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. But the biggest drug companies also make a pretty penny (a combined $711 billion in profits between 2003 and 2012) by buying patents for drugs that were largely developed with taxpayer-funded research, then jacking up the price by absurd amounts after cornering the market.


Combined profits of top pharma companies. Data courtesy of healthcareforamericanow.org.

This $270 billion annual subsidy could be virtually eliminated by passing Bernie Sanders’ bill to establish a government fund that buys up drug patents as soon as they become available for purchase. Then, the government would sell drugs at-cost to save money for those who need them. The money saved could pay for the annual $270 billion in insurance costs from Obamacare that would help more Americans get access to healthcare.

5. CAPITAL GAINS TAX BREAKS ($51 BILLION/YEAR)
When anyone makes money from selling off investments, the IRS classifies that as capital gains, which are taxed at a lower rate (20 percent as of 2012) than real, actual work (35 percent). Pew Research found that 53 percent of Americans own no stock at all, and out of the 47 percent who do, the richest 5 percent own two-thirds of that stock. And only 10 percent of Americans have pensions, so stock market gains or losses don’t affect the incomes of most retirees. The Century Foundation found that the total amount of lost revenue by taxing capital gains at a lower rate than wages cost $256 billion between fiscal years 2012 and 2016, or $51 billion a year over the last 5 years. According to the Tax Policy Center, if investment income was taxed at the same rate as wages, 75 percent of that new revenue would come from the richest 0.3 percent of Americans; 92 percent of that revenue would come from those making $200,000 or more per year. The chart below shows what percentage of income each tax bracket makes from capital gains — not surprisingly, the wealthiest Americans get most of the benefit from capital gains.


Chart courtesy of The Century Foundation.

If we taxed wealth like work, the extra $51 billion per year in savings could fund two-thirds of the annual budget for food stamps.

6. CORPORATE TAX SUBSIDIES FROM STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ($80.4 BILLION/YEAR)
In 2012, the New York Times did an analysis of every existing tax break in each of the 50 states and learned that 1,874 programs cost taxpayers $80.4 billion every year for corporate welfare in their state. Compare that cost with the cost of providing tuition-free public college to every student, which The Atlantic estimated would be a mere $62.6 billion. As the chart below shows, this is actually way cheaper than what we currently spend on federal student aid.


Current cost of existing federal college aid. (courtesy of The Atlantic)

7. HANDOUTS TO BIG AG ($18 BILLION/YEAR)
Crop insurance — a program originally intended to help farmers recover from the dust bowls of the 1930s — has become a slush fund for wealthy corporate farmers who have become experts at manipulating the system for their own means. As Bloomberg reported, the median income of commercial farm households (in which farming makes up more than 50 percent of a household’s income) was $84,649 in 2011 — 70 percent more than the average American household. Farmers have learned to exploit the program by growing crops on land they know will be unproductive, then making money from insurance claims rather than crops. In 2011, 26 farmers each got an annual subsidy of $1 million, including one tomato farmer in Florida who got a $1.9 million subsidy.

This $18 billion in corporate welfare is more than NASA’s annual budget, which has hovered around the $17 billion mark since 2009.

8. WELFARE FOR WALL STREET ($83 BILLION/YEAR)
The biggest banks have grown even bigger than they were just before the 2008 financial meltdown. And due to their size, these banks are perceived as “too big to fail,” as their demise would spell doom for the US financial sector as a whole. So as these big banks grow bigger, the Federal Reserve allows them to borrow at lower interest rates than other big banks — essentially subsidizing the continued growth of the big banks. In 2013, Bloomberg estimated the ten biggest TBTF banks suck up $83 billion per year in corporate welfare.


If we were to force the big banks to borrow at the same interest rates as every other bank at a rate of $83 billion per year, that would be enough to double the current federal budgets for highway spending ($48.6 billion), Head Start ($10.1 billion), the Environmental Protection Agency ($7.89 billion), nutrition assistance for women, infants, and children ($6.2 billion), the National Parks Service ($3 billion), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ($2.39 billion), with $5 billion left over.

9. EXPORT-IMPORT BANK SUBSIDIES ($112 BILLION)
This week, the House of Representatives voted to revive the Export-Import (Ex-Im) bank, which has been maligned as a slush fund for large, multinational corporations. In its most recent year, the Ex-Im bank had a $112 billion portfolio, of which $90 billion went to multinationals. If that wasn’t bad enough, a huge portion of that money went to just 10 wealthy corporations.



According to the New York Times, the federal government spends roughly $105 billion on public K-12 schools. If we allow the Ex-Im bank to fade away, the money formerly set aside for corporate subsidies could instead double that investment in public education.

10. FEDERAL CONTRACTS FOR THE TOP 200 BIGGEST COMPANIES ($880 BILLION/YEAR)
The biggest 200 corporations have an excessively unfair advantage over their competitors due to their influence in Washington. According to the Sunlight Foundation, the top 200 companies spent a combined $5.8 billion on lobbying Congress between 2007 and 2012. And in those same years, those companies received $4.4 trillion in federal contracts. That $4.4 trillion is $100 billion more than what the U.S. government spent on providing a basic income to the nation’s 50 million Social Security recipients. This chart shows how much the top ten corporations spent on lobbying and how much they got in return:



The combined cost of these 10 corporate welfare programs is $1.539 trillion per year. The three main programs needy families depend upon — Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ($17.3 billion), food stamps ($74 billion), and the Earned Income Tax Credit ($67.2 billion) — cost just $158.5 billion in total. This means we spend ten times as much on corporate welfare and handouts to the top 1 percent than we do on welfare for working families struggling to make ends meet.







Tom Cahill is a writer for US Uncut based in the Pacific Northwest. He specializes in coverage of political, economic, and environmental news. You can contact Tom via email at [email protected].

So keeping money from your leviathan is welfare..,huh......