This is where it all begins.

- Chop the legs out from under “Big Business”, bring them back from la-la land, and this Country’s economy may stand a fighting chance of surviving.

Ten Examples of Welfare for the Rich and Corporations

BILL QUIGLEY FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Here are the top ten examples of corporate welfare and welfare for the rich. There are actually thousands of tax breaks and subsidies for the rich and corporations provided by federal, state and local governments but these ten will give a taste.

One: State and Local Subsidies to Corporations. An excellent New York Times study by Louise Story calculated that state and local government provide at least $80 billion in subsidies to corporations. Over 48 big corporations received over $100 million each. GM was the biggest at a total of $1.7 billion extracted from 16 different states but Shell, Ford and Chrysler all received over a billion dollars each. Amazon, Microsoft, Prudential, Boeing and casino companies in Colorado and New Jersey received well over $200 million each.

Two: Direct Federal Subsidies to Corporations. The Cato Institute estimates that federal subsidies to corporations costs taxpayers almost $100 billion every year.

Three: Federal Tax Breaks for Corporations. The tax code gives corporations special tax breaks which reduced what is supposed to be a 35 percent tax rate to an actual tax rate of 13 percent, saving these corporations an additional $200 billion annually, according to the US Government Accountability Office.

Four: Federal Tax Breaks for Wealthy Hedge Fund Managers. Special tax breaks for hedge fund managers allow them to pay only 15% rate while the people they earned the money for usually pay 35% rate. This is the break where the multimillionaire manager pays less of a percentage in taxes than her secretary. The National Priorities Project estimates this costs taxpayers $83 billion annually and 68% of those who receive this special tax break earn more than $462,500 per year (the top one percent of earners).

Five: Subsidy to Fast Food Industry. Research by the University of Illinois and UC Berkeley documents that taxpayers pay about $243 billion each year in indirect subsidies to the fast food industry because they pay wages so low that taxpayers must put up $243 billion to pay for public benefits for their workers.

Six: Mortgage Deduction. The home mortgage deduction, which costs taxpayers $70 billion per year, is a huge subsidy to the real estate, banking and construction industries. The Center of Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that 77 percent of the benefit goes to homeowners with incomes over $100,000 per year.

Seven: The billions above do not even count the government bailout of Wall Street which all parties have done their utmost to tell the public they did not need, they paid back, or it was a great investment. The Atlantic Monthly estimates that $7.6 trillion was made available by the Federal Reserve to banks, financial firms and investors. The Cato Institute estimates (using government figures) the final costs at $32 to $68 billion, not including the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which alone cost more than $180 billion.

Eight: Each major piece of legislation contains new welfare for the rich and corporations. The Boston Globe analyzed the emergency tax legislation passed by Congress in early 2013 and found it contained 43 business and energy tax breaks worth $67 billion.

Nine: Huge corporations which engage in criminal or other wrongful activities protect their leaders from being prosecuted by paying huge fees or fines to the government. You and I would be prosecuted. These corporations protect their bosses by paying off the government. For example, Reuters reported that JP Morgan Chase, which made a preliminary $13 billion mortgage settlement with the US government, is allowed to write off a majority of the deal as tax deductible, saving the corporation $4 billion.

Ten: There are thousands of smaller special breaks for corporations and businesses out there. There is a special subsidy for corporate jets which cost taxpayers $3 billion a year. The tax deduction for second homes costs $8 billion a year. Fifty billionaires received taxpayer funded farm subsidies in the past twenty years.

If you want to look at the welfare for the rich and corporations start with the federal Internal Revenue Code. That is the King James Bible of welfare for the rich and corporations. Special breaks in tax code is the reason there are thousands of lobbyists in the halls of Congress, hundreds of lobbyists around each state legislature and tens of thousands of tax lawyers all over the country.

Don’t touch my junk!

I am trying very hard to make the arguments about cutting, or not, spending on two Government benefits. Social Security and Medicare are being tossed around like a rag doll, and all the stuffing is coming out. Our elected officials and the News Media refer to these programs as “entitlements”, as if they are a form of welfare and something to be looked down upon.

I am not going to rant and rave about a Congress that can’t even show up for work on a daily basis. I will not rant and rave about the hundreds of billions of dollars we pay for these “no show” jobs through our tax donations. I will not rant and rave about a Citizenry that refuses to hold their elected Official’s feet to the fire when it comes to honoring contracts.

I will, instead, rant and rave about the fact that our Federal Government will be in serious breach of contract, if anything small, or large, is cut from these two programs. Beside the fact that there will shortly be a slew of additional folks on the Social Security and Medicare “rolls”, there is the flip side of that equation. There will be vastly more potential job opportunities opening up as hundreds of thousands of “baby boomers” come to the end of their careers, and slide into retirement.

The mechanisms designed to aid our Senior Citizens through their remaining years are Social Security and Medicare. These two Programs are run by the Federal Government, but they are in no way paid for by the Federal Government. How can this be, you may ask? This can be solely for the reason that these two Programs are legal contracts between the working Public and the Federal Government. These Contracts are identical to the Contract you might encounter when signing up for Life Insurance. The deal is that you pay a certain amount of money over a certain amount of time into a fund that in turn promises to pay you a certain amount of money at a certain, predetermined time. This is assistance in connection with your expendable income, once you have hit that predetermined point in time (retirement age).

How does all this relate to our Nation’s Treasury and our current financial situation? In a nut shell, it doesn’t relate to our fiscal crisis one bit. Are there some much needed reforms for each of these two Programs? Yes, most definitely there are reforms that can and should be implemented, and very soon. I don’t think too many people can effectively argue against either of these questions. The question that is arguable is that of how the Federal Government treats these two Funds. Are they going to honor their Contract with the American People, or will they continue to be in breach of said Contracts? That’s correct. They are currently in breach of both contracts. Social Security has been “borrowed” against in past years to shore up other, not so well funded, Programs, and Medicare has been grossly mismanaged and defrauded.

Where does leave the U.S. Citizen transitioning from the working days into their retirement days? It leaves that sector of our Society in a very precarious position. Luckily the money is still there in sufficient amount to fulfill the Contracts. However, if any looting occurs to either one of the Programs, the American Public has every right to file a Civil Law suit against the Federal Government on a myriad of grounds.

Two of those “grounds”, as mentioned, would be “BREACH OF CONTRACT” and “MISMANAGEMENT OF FUNDS” (fraud) (embezzlement), etc. The scary part of this situation is that we are upon it right now, and no one seems to be going to bat for the common, working folk of this Country. And, in a sense, why should anyone stick his/her neck out for us? We don’t seem to be able to do that for ourselves, now, do we? If this Problem goes unaddressed too much longer, there are going to be some Senior Citizens with very short fuses. That, my friends, could get ugly.

Hutch Dubosque is a retired Manufacturing Engineer who has taken up writing Socio-Political commentary using social media. He has a B.A. in Journalism and an AAS in Energy Technology, and is a current member of the Academy of Political Science, among other pertinent organizations. Mr. Dubosque is also the Vice President of the PTSD Alumni Association of Northport, NY, Inc.( a non-profit organization assisting Veterans).