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govt/business incest
on the incestuous relationship between govt and business...
heh doesn't mention the DEFENSE industry, #@&%^*
also for anyone interested, noam chomsky has many good
books out on these subjects
------- Forwarded Messagone
Subject:
[exploration] Corporate Welfare: A Media Issue At Last? (fwd)
Date:
Sat, 28 Nov 1998 08:24:26 -1000
From:
Jonathan David Boyne <[email protected]>
To:
Undisclosed recipients:;
By Norman Solomon / Creators Syndicate
For many years, across the United States, huge quantities of
>tax breaks and subsidies have been going to corporations.
>Occasionally, the media spotlight falls on an example of how
>government policies stand Robin Hood on his head -- shaking down
>the poor and middle class while handing over the proceeds to
>wealthy individuals and big businesses.
>
> Sometimes called "corporate welfare," this pattern of
>legalized rip-offs has been widespread -- yet little of the story
>seems to emerge in major news outlets. Overall, the coverage is
>sporadic at best. In mass media, the broader picture has been
>missing -- until the last few weeks.
>
> November brought a series of breakthroughs, thanks to two
>gifted reporters and a news weekly that allowed them to engage in
>rigorous journalism. All month, beginning with a cover story on
>"What Corporate Welfare Costs You," Time magazine featured
>extraordinary exposes by Donald Barlett and James Steele.
>
> Corporate welfare, they write, is "a game in which
>governments large and small subsidize corporations large and
>small, usually at the expense of another state or town and almost
>always at the expense of individuals and other corporate
>taxpayers."
>
> Barlett and Steele report that "the federal government alone
>shells out $125 billion a year in corporate welfare." Meanwhile,
>"a different kind of feeding frenzy is taking place" at the state
>and local level -- where "politicians stumble over one another in
>the rush to arrange special deals for select corporations."
>
> In theory, the giveaways create jobs. In practice, the
>theory is hogwash: "Time's investigation has established that
>almost without exception, local and state politicians have doled
>out tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to businesses that are
>in fact eliminating rather than creating jobs."
>
> Often, when localities roll out the gold carpet for firms,
>government coffers shrink -- and services for the public
>diminish. As Barlett and Steele document in excruciating detail,
>one of the common results is health-threatening pollution that
>goes unchallenged. The most vulnerable neighborhoods tend to be
>where low-income people live.
>
> The big hogs at the tax-funded trough include popular brands
>-- Intel and Dow, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz, Exxon and
>Shell, UPS and Procter & Gamble, to name just a few. Some are the
>parent companies of media empires, such as Walt Disney (ABC),
>General Electric (NBC) and -- as the Time series acknowledges --
>Time Warner.
>
> "The king of corporate welfare may be Archer Daniels
>Midland," according to Time. "The global agricultural-commodities
>dealer has artfully preserved one of the more blatant welfare
>programs -- a subsidy for ethanol that has already cost taxpayers
>more than $5 billion in the 1990s. Some $3 billion of that has
>gone to ADM."
>
> Year after year, Archer Daniels Midland has poured several
>million dollars into the nightly PBS "NewsHour" television show
>hosted by Jim Lehrer. ADM is also an underwriter of National
>Public Radio news. And the savvy firm buys a lot of image ads on
>commercial TV network programs that discuss political issues. Not
>surprisingly, ADM hasn't been subjected to much tough reporting
>on the national airwaves.
>
> Corporate welfare is an important issue. But it can easily
>be spun in dubious directions. For instance, in an article
>addressed "To Our Readers," Time's editor-in-chief Norman
>Pearlstine throws a wide curve that breaks sharply downward and
>to the right.
>
> "Ending corporate welfare as we know it is essential,"
>Pearlstine contends. But then comes the english: "Rather than
>give corporations uneven and unfair exemptions, it may make more
>sense to simply do away with both corporate welfare and corporate
>taxation."
>
> Now there's an idea that Time Warner can get behind: Stop
>taxing corporations!
>
> Another hazard is the temptation to put all forms of
>government assistance in the same "welfare" category. It would be
>a big mistake to equate government aid to dependent corporations
>with safety-net subsidies for children, seniors and others
>struggling at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder.
>
> Government should not be using tax dollars to help the rich
>get richer. But government has no business refusing to help
>Americans get the nutrition, health care, housing and other
>basics that are everyone's human right.
>
> Welcome as it is, the occasional blockbuster expose of
>corporate abuses -- even in a media outlet as influential as Time
>magazine -- won't accomplish very much. Without an "echo effect,"
>these issues are likely to remain muted.
>
> The need to speak up and take action is a burden that falls
>on people in every community. Large corporations have been
>ripping us off for decades. Our initial efforts to force
>restitution will not be televised.
>
>
>
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