Can someone give me example of Corporate Welfare?

Question

I always hear libs talking about corporate Welfare. Can you

1) Define what you mean by this?

2) Give some examples

Thanks,

Thank you for your answers. However I find it funny that Democrats blame Republicans for all of these programs.

1980: Congress passes and President Jimmy Carter signs a loan guarantee act for Chrysler, in which the government essentially acts as a co-signer of a $1.5 billion loan for the company.

Martin S - You need to get off your high horse here about the airlines. If the government did not step in, the airline, hotel, and other travel industries would have gone bankrupt.

So this "corporate welfare" was to keep them afloat during a national emergency. I don't have a problem with that.

Are you still harping about Haliburton. Here is a little known fact, Haliburton is one of the only companies that can do what it does. If there are no competitors to bid against you, how can the government take something out to bid? Its called a sole source project.

My company get them on occassion with some government contracts since we specialized and are certified in what we do. So they can't go out to bid.

Answer 1

I don't think this is just a republican thing or a democrat thing.

Corporate welfare includes things like farm subsidies which go to big agribusnesses. Huge defense contracts for weapons systems that aren't needed or don't work. Development grants to companies for creating new products. Loan guarantees which create automatic profits for banks.

not all of these things are bad, but not all are worthwhile.

People complain about it because the public seems to focus on the few unworthy individuals who receive public benefits but they don't even know about business which receive far more in federal handouts and don't deliver anything.

It's a matter of which priorities to focus on if you are going to seriously cut the budget.

It's as if Dr Evil is in charge. "Why slash billions when you can slash.... MILLIONS!"

Answer 2

Defense spending is to a large extent funneled into a few paramilitary industries with ties to the government.
Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Etc.
The government will do the R&D through public universities, then grant the findings to the company which will produce them for a profit.
A lot of your tax money is given to arms dealers in no bid contracts. That is but ONE form of Corporate Welfare.

Do you remember when the Mexican market crashed after NAFTA was signed? The US gave money to cover losses to the major US companies who were involved in Mexico. That is yeat another way in which the US government takes from the poor to give to the rich.


More of your money goes into arms and caviar than food stamps. So if you want taxes to go down, you should worry about Halliburton before you complain about crack mothers (who probably had no idea of anything because they studied in run down schools when the government paid the rich for their private schools)

Answer 3

Chrysler is an example of a corporation that needed a bail out . Thats welfare funded by the state for the purpose of private enterprise .

Exxon had the government pick up most of the tab so far for the Exxon Valdez spill and is still litigating in court over its payments for damages .

I could go on to hundreds of cases but we all know thats a waste of time .

Get back to work now and earn some money to take the wife out to dinner .

Answer 4

Haliburton is the best example of corporate welfare,no bid contracts,contracts written specifically to be applied only to certain unnamed republican friends. I will always remember the giant check presented by Lee Iococa to Chrysler,if that isn't corporate welfare what is! The Saving and loan bail outs!

Answer 5

Corporate Welfare is when a company is doing poorly so the government gives it money to stay in business. The reason is that the government BELIEVES that keeping these companies in business helps the economy.

EXAMPLE: After September 11th ALL the airlines regardless of if they were doing well or not were given money to stay "afloat".

Problem: If a company is failing giving it money to stay in business only continues the problem and wastes OUR tax money. If an airline like UNITED goes belly up, another airline would either be created that is run better to take it's place.

Basically, we are paying for a BUSINESS to not do BUSINESS.

Answer 6

Using tax dollars or natural resources to suport corporate profit. As opposed to using the same for human welfare.

Selling timber to logging companies at discounts then the USFS building logging roads for them.

After record earnings by Exxon/Mobile we still refuse to collect exise tax on the oil they pump from American reserves.

Subsidizing farmers in the desert with free irrigation water, or cattle ranchers with free grazing on federal land. Or crop subsidies (corn, soy bean) which go directly to ADM and Con-Agra.

The bailout of Wall Street by The US Treasury, and the Bourse by the French treasury by buying up all those sub-prime mortgage securities so the "liquidity" would remain and the financial markets wouldn't crash before the election.

Giving open-ended contracts to General Dynamics, Boeing, Aerodyne etc to develop "next-generation" military hardware.

Bailout of Chrysler Cotrporation after Iacoca ran it into the ground.

Answer 7

From CATO: ' "corporate welfare" is defined as any federal spending program that provides payments or unique benefits and advantages to specific companies or industries.'

Government sponsored capitalism isn't capitalism. Its a command-economy.

"the federal government continues to subsidize some of the biggest companies in America. Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical, General Electric, and others have received millions in taxpayer-funded benefits through programs like the Advanced Technology Program and the Export-Import Bank. In addition, the federal crop subsidy programs continue to fund the wealthiest farmers."

Answer 8

1. Federal tax breaks to Exxon and Mobil oil. These companies are making record profits, why are they getting to keep their tax dollars instead of paying their fair share like everyone else is expected to do?

2. Farm subsidies - We spend billions every year to pay farmers not to plant anything and leave their fields fallow. They do this to drive up the price of crops to "fair market value". Now with ethanol production rising, the price of corn is through the roof because not enough farmers are growing corn to keep up with supply and we are still paying farmers not to grow anything.

3. Ethanol production is also subsidized to help multi-millionaires and billionaires build ethanol plants. Ethanol plants also receive subsidies to operate an ethanol plant that would not be necessary if corn was cheaper.
(See item 2)

Stop the corporate welfare, stop private welfare and stop international welfare.

This is nothing more than giving away our tax dollars to people that do not need or deserve our hard earned money.

Both of the major parties are equally guilty of these total wastes of money.

Answer 9

This is a sort of tongue-in-cheek expression, meaning benefits which were given to large corporations by the Republicans in the last years.
They would include huge corporate tax decreases in the last 8 years, as well as enormous decreases in the personal taxes CEO's and other corporate executives will have to pay. Sure people who make less money also got breaks, but since they make less money, the vast majority of dollar decrease benefited wealthy individuals.
They would also include crop subsidies (paying farmers to not grow things, which has been done for a long time now). For some strange reason, this is also generally supported by conservatives, who are supposedly for saving money and cutting waste.
Hope this helps.
PS: Don't blink, the government is about to step in and bail out subprime mortgage lenders who are in trouble due to irresponsible lending habits.

Answer 10

US giving McDonalds a 100,000K tax break for advertising in China. Sorry, I don't have time to pull the source.

That is a nutshell definition of corporate welfare. Giving extra tax break and incentives to companies posting billion dollar profits.