CORPORATE WELFARE
Some people who like to beat up on the notion of the "welfare state" target only the disadvantaged, but remain silent on corporate welfare. We have people on this site who remain silent on this topic while they insult poor people about purchasing $90 shoes and generally imply that the most vulnerable in society are indolent and don't care about their families.
The Cato Institute is a think tank in Washington that promotes "limited government" and "free markets." Here's the intro to a Cato Institute report from 2007:
The Corporate Welfare State: How the Federal Government Subsidizes U.S. Businesses
by Stephen Slivinski
Stephen Slivinski is director of budget studies at the Cato Institute and author of Buck Wild: How the Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government (2006).
Published on May 14, 2007
The federal government spent $92 billion in direct and indirect subsidies to businesses and private- sector corporate entities ? expenditures commonly referred to as "corporate welfare" ? in fiscal year 2006. The definition of business subsidies used in this report is broader than that used by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, which recently put the costs of direct business subsidies at $57 billion in 2005. For the purposes of this study, "corporate welfare" is defined as any federal spending program that provides payments or unique benefits and advantages to specific companies or industries.
Supporters of corporate welfare programs often justify them as remedying some sort of market failure. Often the market failures on which the programs are predicated are either overblown or don't exist. Yet 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.
This is the tip of the iceberg.
You can download the full report here:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8230