Welfare for the Well-Off: How Business Subsidies Fleece Taxpayers
Snippet of Article: "...Some of the most subsidized recipients of public assistance are not welfare queens housed in public tenement apartments. They are not even poor or ailing at all. Far from it. America's most costly welfare recipients today are Fortune 500 companies. In 1997 the Fortune 500 corporations recorded best-ever earnings of $325 billion, yet incredibly Uncle Sam doled out nearly $100 billion in taxpayer subsidies. These welfare payments come in every conceivable shape and size: government grants, sweetheart business deals arranged by the Commerce Department, cut-rate insurance, low-interest loans, a protective wall against foreign competition, exclusive government contracts, and a mind-boggling maze of special interest loopholes in the tax code. Table 1 lists the 1997 appropriations for fifty-five of the most unjustified federal business subsidy spending programs as compiled by the Cato Institute. Their combined price tag came to $38 billion in 1997..."
Source: www.hoover.org
