COLUMN: Corporate welfare tops government waste, politics

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by Nick Weller

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FOR THE past few months, politicians in Washington have been focused on hammering out a federal budget.

Underlying all of the debate has been a penchant for listening to big money and neglecting the citizens who elect representatives.

Congress needs to pay more attention to its constituents and less attention to lobbyists who try to buy votes.

Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services, recently decried the GOP welfare reform for putting "special inter- ests ahead of our children's interests."

Fortunately, President Clinton vetoed this welfare proposal. It is clear through the recent welfare debate that something must be done to change the current system.

A successful welfare overhaul must put the silent victims of welfare reform, children, at the forefront of the debate.

As the debate about the federal budget continues, there will undoubtedly be more rhetoric about the need to change Medicaid and welfare to reduce the deficit.

If Congress is really serious about balancing the budget, they would look to where there are huge quantities of wasted money.

First and foremost, the Penta-gon's overfattened budget. Congress and President Clinton approved a Defense appropriation bill which allocated $7 billion more than the Pentagon requested.

In addition to reducing the Pentagon's budget, Congress should take a look at corporate welfare.

There is almost no talk of cutting what Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls ADC aid to dependent corporation.

The Cato Institute estimates that corporations get $1 trillion in this ADC in a decade.

Simple arithmetic reveals that this is $100 billion a year, or half the national deficit.

It is also four times the amount of money spent on Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

If the politicians really wanted to cut the deficit, they should look here for the money.

The problem is these companies provide politicians with most of their campaign favors.

In doing so, they buy themselves protection from tough reform laws.

Instead, it is the defenseless people on welfare and Medicaid who take the brunt of the cuts.

This robbing the poor to feed the rich is not limited to the federal government.

State and local governments have been equally generous with corporate give-aways.

What this corporate welfare amounts to is a way for politicians to remain popular and to transfer money from the poor and middle class to the rich.

These tax breaks are disproportionately paid for by the poor and middle class.

Barlett and Steele found that between 1961 and 1991 the cost of local and state governments grew astronomically.

This burden fell disproportionately on the poor and middle class.

State sales tax receipts, paid mostly by the poor and middle class, increased at almost twice the rate of corporate taxes.

In addition, state income taxes went up at about four times the rate of corporate taxes.

This results in a net transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor.

For example, Baton Rouge recently gave Exxon $14.4 billion in tax abatements. All this excessive funding was for a total of one new permanent job.

As Congress and the President continue to debate about a federal budget, they should turn their attention to the citizens they represent.

This change in emphasis would result in a budget which addressed the needs of citizens instead of big money and special interests.

Any real emphasis on being fiscally responsible at all levels of government would look at these corporate rip-offs and curtail them.

Nick Weller is a member of the Rice Young Democrats and a Brown College freshman.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the February 23, 1996 issue.

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