Republicans are pointing to public service cuts in the federal budget before our country goes off the rails — fiscally on 1 June! So here's a few budget busters they should be very familiar with but will never mention. Democrats shouldn't be pointing fingers either.
Subsidy: A government payment to a private entity to "buy down" a product or service.
Boeing, 1,670 payments received, $16 trillion taxpayer dollars. General Motors, 787 payments received, $10 trillion. Intel, 156 payments received, $10 trillion. Ford Motors, 617 payments received, $8 trillion. Micron Technologies, 20 payments received, $6 trillion. This is only the top five and there's a lot more.
How about big oil, natural gas and coal? The taxpayer subsidy is as little as $20 billion yearly on federal paper but the actual cost ranges between $700 billion and $1 trillion annually with nearly $6 trillion spent globally. Special tax incentives, heating oil assistance and write-offs combined with climate change are driving those payments even higher. Poetically, the CEOs of those oil companies are salaried $15-$25 million annually. Taxpayers are also forced to subsidize coal while at the same time trying to dump it.
It doesn't get any better. The bulk of government farm subsidies aren’t going to mom and pop farms. More than 80% of annual farm subsidies go to large corporate farms, $198 billion annually which strangely still includes tobacco subsidies. It pays well for corporations to have a politician or party in their back pocket when taxpayer money is being doled out by Congress.
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Corporations are given these subsidies to insure their cash contributions keep coming in so the 1% can remain in power. All this information is available on-line from assorted watchdog groups and government agencies. It's maddening enough to raise your blood pressure. Then comes foreign aid.
Louie Hoffmann
Brainerd
The Trust Project
