The Real Socialism In The United States Is Corporate Welfare

The Republicans love to whine about socialism. They would have you believe that everything the Democrats try to do is socialism. It's not. But the crazy thing is that there is a brand of socialism in this country created and sustained by the Republicans -- a socialism for the rich and corporations.

Here's how Robert Reich describes it: 

You may have heard Republicans in Congress rail about how the Democrats’ agenda is chock-full of scary “socialist” policies. 

We do have socialism in this country — but it’s not Democrats’ policies. The real socialism is corporate welfare. 

Thousands of big American corporations rake in billions each year in government subsidies, bailouts, and tax loopholes – all funded on the taxpayer dime, and all contributing to higher stock prices for the richest 1 percent who own half of the stock market, as well as CEOs and other top executives who are paid largely in shares of stock. 

Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Pharma, defense contractors, and big banks are the biggest beneficiaries of corporate welfare.

How? Follow the money. These corporations and their trade groups spend hundreds of millions each year on lobbying and campaign contributions. Their influence-peddling pays off. The return on these political investments is huge. It’s institutionalized bribery. 

An even more insidious example is corporations that don’t pay their workers a living wage. As a result, their workers have to rely on programs like Medicaid, public housing, food stamps and other safety nets. Which means you and I and other taxpayers indirectly subsidize these corporations, allowing them to enjoy even higher profits and share prices for their wealthy investors and executives.

Not only does corporate welfare take money away from us as taxpayers. It also harms smaller businesses that have a harder time competing with big businesses that get these subsidies. Everyone loses except those at the top. 

It’s more socialism for the rich, harsh capitalism for the rest. 

It should be ended. 

Many Profitable Corporations Still Pay No Taxes

The Republican tax law of 2017 was supposed to make taxation fairer for corporations. The idea was that with a much lower tax burden. corporations would not avoid taxes, but would actually pay them. But nothing has changed at all. The 60 very profitable companies in the charts above all paid NO taxes in 2018. In fact, many got a tax refund (which means they made money off our tax system).

This must change, but it will not change as long as Republicans hold power. They are not going to do anything to make corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

The Biggest Welfare "Queens" Are Giant Corporations

Republicans would like to cut welfare (or eliminate it altogether). These heartless individuals don't care about helping hurting Americans. They will be quick to tell them they just need to pull themselves up by their boot straps, and get a job (even though most of the poor already have a job -- one that keeps them in poverty).And while they want to cut all forms of welfare for the truly needy, they refuse to raise the minimum wage (which would help millions out of poverty).

But when it comes to corporations, the Republicans sing a different tune. They can't seem to give enough "welfare to the corporations -- even though they don't need it. And this corporate welfare costs American taxpayers far more than help for needy families.

Here is what former Labor Secretary Robert Reich (pictured) has to say about corporate welfare:

You often hear Trump and Republicans in Congress railing against so-called “welfare programs” – by which they mean programs that provide health care or safety nets to ordinary Americans. 

But you almost never hear them complaining about another form of welfare that lines the pockets of wealthy corporations. We must end corporate welfare. Now.

There are several ways corporations get rich on the taxpayer’s dime. The most obvious comes through subsidies or tax breaks for certain businesses or industries.

Consider the fossil fuel industry, one of the most profitable and privileged sectors of the economy. Every year, oil companies get to deduct millions of dollars from their tax bills for the cost of new wells, oil exploration, and other drilling and mining expenses. 

It’s been estimated that repealing these special tax breaks would save taxpayers $39 billion over 10 years.

Other examples of corporate welfare include billions in government subsidies for agricultural conglomerates, pharmaceutical makers, tech giants and defense contractors. 

Other industries don’t get these benefits. Meanwhile, most families don’t even benefit from tax credits and deductions for childcare.

State and local governments are also handing out corporate welfare, often with no strings attached. In 2013, for example, the state of Washington approved a record $8.7 billion handout to Boeing in order “to maintain and grow its workforce within the state.“ What did Boeing do? In the following years, it laid off more than 12,000 workers in the state.

State and local tax breaks for corporations are estimated to cost local schools almost $2 billion a year in lost tax revenue. 

It’s argued they create jobs, yet nationwide, not a single new job is created. At most, the jobs are merely moved from state to state. 

How do corporations get this corporate welfare? Follow the money. They spend hundreds of millions on lobbying and campaign contributions. 

An even more insidious example of corporate welfare occurs when corporations don’t pay their workers a living wage. As a result, those workers often have to rely on programs like Medicaid, public housing, food stamps and other safety nets.

Which means you and I and other taxpayers end up subsidizing these low wages so those corporations can enjoy even higher profits for their executives and wealthy investors. 

For example, every year, Americans spend an estimated $153 billion in taxes and on programs to subsidize McDonald’s and Walmart’s low-wage workers. 

Here’s the bottom-line: When corporations get special handouts from the government, it costs the rest of us. We have to pay more in taxes to make up for these hidden tax breaks, subsidies, and loopholes. In turn, there’s less money for good schools and roads, Medicare and national defense, and everything else we need.

So the next time you hear conservatives railing against welfare handouts for the poor, remind them that we should really be cutting corporate welfare – unnecessary and unwarranted aid for dependent corporations.

Amazon Cuts The Bidding War For Its New Facility To 20 Cities

(This cartoon image was found at The Contributor.)

Amazon, the mega on-line corporation, wants to build a new headquarters complex. But instead of just searching for a good location, they threw the bidding open -- and over 200 cities entered the fray (offering all kinds of benefits to the corporation -- from land to tax cuts). Those cities wanted the thousands of jobs that likely will come with the new complex.

I'm sure that Amazon considers this procedure to be good business, and the cities consider there giveaways to be worth the new jobs. But those cities overlook the fact that most of their jobs come from small businesses (who get none of the giveaways being offered to Amazon), and the fact that their citizens will have to make up what Amazon doesn't pay in taxes.

To me, this doesn't look like good business or good government. Instead, it reeks of greed and corruption. At the very least, it's corporate welfare.

Here are the 20 cities that have made Amazon's short list, along with what some have offered (offers that will probably be increased now that they made the first cut):

Atlanta: Atlanta's mayor, Kasim Reed, said the city would offer incentives and development that would be worth more than $1 billion. In Stonecrest, a Georgia city about 20 miles east of Atlanta, the mayor offered to rename it "Amazon" and instate Jeff Bezos as the permanent mayor. 

Austin, Texas: Austin hasn't publicly disclosed any type of tax incentive or break for Amazon. In its bid, the city decided to tout its culture, instead. The city's mayor, Steve Adler, said it's offering Amazon a chance to be the "social fabric and future" of Austin. 

Boston: The city proposed an "Amazon Task Force" in its 109-page bid. It would essentially entail paid city staffers whose sole purpose is to represent Amazon's interests to Boston's government. 

Chicago: The city offered $2 billion in tax breaks, and suggested it could go even higher than that.

Columbus, Ohio: The Midwestern city offered Amazon tax breaks for 15 years, including 100 percent property tax abatement, and a 35 percent income tax refund. These offers would save Amazon millions in taxes for more than a decade.

Dallas: Similar to Austin, Dallas is also not offering any major tax break. Instead, it's pushing on its city's merits. 

Denver: The city is offering "performance-based incentives," which isn't exactly a special break for Amazon. It's relying on the state's Strategic Fund Incentive and Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit, offered to any business that comes to Colorado. These incentives can save Amazon more than $100 million in taxes. 

Indianapolis: It's keeping its bid details secret. 

Los Angeles: The Southern California city has kept its offers under wraps, but has indicated it would provide "costs and incentives" to Amazon. There are no specific details on how much that would entail. 

Miami: It's keeping its bid details secret. 

Montgomery County, Maryland: Bethesda Magazine's Bethesda Beat received the bid through a public records request with the government. The state redacted all information on financial and tax incentives. But at least we know there are incentive offers. 

Nashville, Tennessee: The Music City's officials actually frowned on all the tax incentives being offered, calling it "absurd" in one interview. Instead, they're pitching to Amazon based on the city's development and steady population growth.  

Newark, New Jersey: This is the big one. Newark is offering Amazon $7 billion in tax incentives, the largest one among all 238 cities that made a bid. 

New York: Other than the orange light-up show Mayor Bill de Blasio pulled off, the city is also offering lots of space, both for development and housing for potential employees moving there.  

Northern Virginia: It's keeping its bid details a secret. 

Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Inquirer received a heavily redacted document after it made a public records request to the city. But the pitch did offer up 280,000 square feet of office space at the 30th Street Station building, along with up to 4.2 million square feet of development space across the city.

Pittsburgh: It's keeping its bid details a secret, but noted that its tax incentives make a "very competitive package." 

Raleigh, North Carolina: It's keeping its bid details a secret, and has denied 11 out of 15 public records requests from WRAL.

Toronto: Toronto is the only Canadian city listed as a finalist, and a good chunk of its pitch relies on that appeal. There are no tax subsidies in its pitch, but the city's officials point to its lower corporate tax rates compared to the US, as well as its universal health care.   

Washington: The bid noted "significant tax breaks," though details were redacted in the public records provided to WAMU. The records also pitched creating an "Amazon University," which would train and create a direct pipeline of people to work at Amazon.

U.S. Corporations Do NOT Pay The World's Highest Taxes

(Image was found at the blog of Montreal Simon.)

Donald Trump, and his Republican accomplices in Congress, want you to believe that American corporations are forced to pay the highest taxes in the world. They are lying to you! About 20% of profitable American corporations pay no taxes at all, and the rest pay between 12.5% and 19% -- far below the 35% the Republicans want you to think they pay. And the percentage of U.S. taxes paid by corporations has dropped from 33% in 1952 to only about 10% currently.

The truth is that American corporations are NOT overtaxed. A tax cut would be good for the economy, but it should be a cut for the working and middle classes -- not for corporations (or the richest Americans).

Here is how Hunter Blair at the Economic Policy Institute describes the corporate tax issue:

As the GOP push to pass “tax reform” starts to heat up, policymakers will debate whether the corporate tax rate is too high or too low. A standard but misleading talking point for those wishing to give more tax breaks to corporations is that the United States has one of the highest statutory rates in the world at 35 percent. This is misleading because what corporations actually pay (their effective rate) is far lower. The corporate tax code is riddled with loopholes, most notably the deferral loophole which allows large multinational corporations to avoid paying their taxes indefinitely on profits they make offshore. And despite some recent claims to the contrary, a recent CBO report doesn’t overturn, but rather bolsters the research showing that corporations pay less than a 35 percent tax rate.

Due to data limitations, it’s hard to come up with one conclusive rate. But multiple studies with distinct methodologies have found effective federal corporate tax rates that range between 13 and 19 percent— far smaller than the rate corporations are supposed to pay.

Real tax reform would close the deferral loophole and ensure that large multinational corporations cannot continue to dodge the taxes they owe. Instead, the Trump administration has reversed its position on commitments to close the deferral loophole, and their most recent proposal followed congressional Republicans’ plans to institute a territorial tax system, which would no longer tax multinational corporations’ offshore profits at all. At its core, a territorial tax system makes the deferral loophole permanent.

This would cause an enormous revenue loss. In hopes that Congress would pass a repatriation tax “holiday” (as happened in 2004), large multinational corporations have used the current deferral loophole to book $2.6 trillion in profits offshore. The corporate tax base is likely to erode far more if this deferral loophole were made permanent.

The United States could benefit from real tax reform that clawed back the taxes that large multinational corporations have been dodging. Instead, the Trump administration is offering to make the deferral loophole permanent and to open up new loopholes for the rich. If policymakers wanted to help working people through tax reform, they would broaden the tax base by closing loophole and make corporations pay their fair share.

Are U.S. Corporations Preparing To "Cut And Run" ?

(Cartoon image is by Hajo de Reijger at cagle.com.)

Here is a thought-provoking and pretty scary article from Gordon Later and Greg LeRoy at the Economic Policy Institute. It's worth reading.

When the term “Rustbelt” was coined in the 1980s and activists learned the early warning signs of a plant closing, one of those indicators was tax dodging. If a company knew it was planning to close a factory, it would often challenge its property tax assessment or seek other tax breaks. And why not? If it didn’t expect to be hiring locally in the future, why should an employer care about the quality of the schools?

The national trend today looks like the Rustbelt 1980s on steroids. President Trump’s budget proposal follows the playbook that corporate lobbyists have long pushed in state legislatures: tax cuts for companies and the rich, coupled with dramatic cuts to services that benefit everyone. The resulting permanent damage to those public services begs the question: is Corporate America intentionally disinvesting, abandoning our nation?

In recent years, states and localities across the country have made drastic cuts to essential public services. Texas eliminated over 10,000 teaching jobs, and ended full-day preschool for 100,000 low-income kids. The city of Muncie, Indiana eliminated so many firefighter positions that the area of the city that fire trucks can reach within eight minutes was cut in half. In Milwaukee, budget cuts left the public transit reaching 1,300 fewer employers in 2015 than in 2001.

Local health departments were forced to cut back everything from neonatal care to cancer screening to vision and hearing tests for school children to inspecting food safety in local restaurants. Officials reported that if the nation faces an outbreak similar to the H1N1 flu epidemic, many localities will be unable to vaccinate their residents. Budget cuts were particularly devastating in the country’s school systems. In 2010, the national student-teacher ratio increased for the first time since the Great Depression; and seven years after the onset of the Great Recession, most states had still not restored per-pupil spending to pre-recession levels.

Most striking about these cuts: the legislators who enacted them and the business lobbies that championed them treated them not as temporary tragedies to be repaired when revenues bounced back, but as long-desired permanent cuts to public services. Indeed, many legislatures locked in poorer tax bases by enacting new tax giveaways to corporations and the rich while slashing funding for schools, libraries, and health care. In the same year that Ohio ended full-day kindergarten, legislators phased out the state’s inheritance tax—which had only ever affected the wealthiest seven percent of families.

This agenda was driven by the country’s premier corporate lobbies: chambers of commerce, manufacturers associations, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, and the Fortune 500 corporations that have participated in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Which begs the question about their motives: why would leading corporations seek permanent cuts to education, libraries or public transit? Don’t they need full access to labor pools of educated workers and decently-paid consumers to buy their products and services? The behavior of the nation’s biggest corporate lobbies appears to be irrational, yet it has been repeated in state after state.

One answer appears to lie in the disturbing fact that the fortunes of “American” corporations have become increasingly divorced from those of American citizens. It may never have been entirely true that “what’s good for General Motors is what’s good for the country,” as the company’s president apocryphally suggested in 1953. But it was closer to true when companies relied on Americans both to make and to buy their products. Today, most GM employees and nearly two-thirds of the cars it sells are overseas; it already sells more cars in China than in the U.S. General Motors has been highly engaged in American politics, including as a member of ALEC.

GM is not exceptional. For the first time, many of the country’s most powerful political actors are companies that may be headquartered in America but don’t primarily depend for their profits upon the fortunes of American society. Foreign sales now account for 48 percent of the S&P 500’s total corporate revenues. Among recent ALEC member corporations, Exxon Mobil, Caterpillar, Procter & Gamble, Pfizer, Dow Chemical, and IBM all earn more than 60 percent of their revenue outside the U.S. Their political interests are increasingly disconnected from the fate of American workers and taxpayers.

The net effect of corporate tax dodging is that by every key measure—share of state revenue, share of GDP, or effective rate—state corporate income taxes have been steadily declining. This creates pressure to raise other taxes, disproportionately borne by working families, who grow to resent a government that costs them more yet delivers less.

Given this reality, we take this corporate-backed push for disinvestment of America’s public sector as a big, loud early warning signal. ALEC’s agenda is not that of employers committed to their surrounding communities. It more resembles that of a company planning to cut and run. For the rest of us who seek good jobs and future opportunity for ourselves and our children, what’s good for GM is good for GM, period.

Reich Says We Must End Corporate Welfare

(This cartoon is by Darl Cagle at cagle.com.)

Another excellent post from Robert Reich on his own blog:

Corporations aren’t people, despite what the Supreme Court says, and they don’t need or deserve handouts. 

When corporations get special handouts from the government – subsidies and tax breaks – it costs you. It means you have to pay more in taxes to make up for these hidden expenses. And government has less money for good schools and roads, Medicare and national defense, and everything else you need.

You might call these special corporate handouts “corporate welfare,” but at least welfare goes to real people in need. In the big picture, corporate handouts are costing tens of billions of dollars a year. Some estimates put it over $100 billion – which means it’s costing you money that would otherwise go to better schools or roads, or lower taxes.

Conservatives have made a game of obscuring where federal spending actually goes. In reality, only about 12 percent of federal spending goes to individuals and families, most in dire need. An increasing portion goes to corporate welfare.

Other examples: The oil, gas, and coal industries get billions in their own special tax breaks. Big Agribusiness gets farm subsides. Big Pharma gets their own subsidy in the form of a ban on government using its bargaining power under Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. And hedge-fund and private-equity managers get a special tax loophole that treats their income as capital gains, at a lower tax rate than ordinary income.

The real issue isn’t the government’s size. It’s whom government is for. Much of government is no longer working for the vast majority it’s intended to serve. If government were responding to the public’s interest instead of the moneyed interests, it would be providing more support for communities, families, and individuals who need it the most.

There’s no reason any corporations should be on the dole, or that your hard-earned dollars should be going to them for no reason but their political clout.

So we have to demand an end to corporate welfare. No more handouts to particular corporations and industries simply because they’re big enough and powerful enough to get them. No more specialized tax breaks. No more exemptions or special treatment. No more crony capitalism.

Warren Asks Public To Stop The TPP's Corporate Giveaway

Here is Senator Warren's latest plea to Americans to help her stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership:

The United States is in the final stages of secret, closed-door negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade agreement with 11 other countries.

Who will benefit from it? One provision hidden in the fine print – “Investor-State Dispute Settlement” – may sound harmless, but don’t let that fool you: ISDS could let foreign companies challenge US laws without ever stepping in an American court.

That would undermine US sovereignty and tilt the playing field even further in favor of multinational corporations.

Here’s how ISDS would work: Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge that regulation in a US court.

But with ISDS, the company could skip the US courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the multinational company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in US courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions – and even billions – of dollars in damages.

If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldn’t employ independent judges. Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next. Really.

And if the tilt toward giant corporations wasn’t clear enough, consider who would get to use this special court: only international investors, which are, by and large, giant corporations. So if a Vietnamese company with US operations wanted to challenge our refusal to import a dangerous chemical, it could use ISDS. But if an American labor union or human rights group believed Vietnam was allowing Vietnamese companies to pay slave wages in violation of trade commitments, the American labor group would have to make its case in the Vietnamese courts – and if an environmental group thought the Vietnamese company was dumping waste in their rivers in violation of the new trade agreement, they would have to go to a Vietnamese court as well. In other words, the great deal for corporations is only for corporations – everyone else is left out.

Opposing ISDS isn’t a partisan issue – even your Tea Party relatives should be worried about this dangerous provision:

• Conservatives who believe in US sovereignty should be outraged that ISDS would shift power from American courts, whose authority is derived from our Constitution, to unaccountable international tribunals.
• Libertarians should be offended that ISDS effectively would offer a free taxpayer subsidy to countries with weak legal systems.
• And progressives should oppose ISDS because it would allow big multinational corporations to weaken labor and environmental rules.

If a final TPP agreement includes Investor-State Dispute Settlement, the only winners will be multinational corporations. Join me in saying No to ISDS.

Thank you for being a part of this,

Elizabeth

(Both of the images above are from the Flickr archives of DonkeyHotey.)

Welfare Queen

Wal-Mart may be the biggest welfare queen in the United States, but it is far from the only one. The fast food industry is also guilty of padding their profits by forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for much of their labor. We need to stop this corporate welfare now -- and a good start toward doing that would be to raise the minimum wage to a livable level. Corporations should pay their own expenses, just like ordinary Americans must do.

Oil Lobby Whines Because President Obama Wants Them To Pay Taxes

President Obama has proposed to lower the taxes on corporations, including the Big Oil corporations, from a 35% tax rate to a rate in the upper twenties. To pay for this tax cut, the president has proposed to eliminate some of the tax loopholes and subsidies currently used by corporations to avoid paying taxes -- loopholes and subsidies that allow some corporations to pay no taxes at all (even though they are making billions of dollars in profits).

I don't have a problem with the president's proposal. I would rather see these corporations pay a 27% or 28% tax rate than nothing at all. But the Big Oil companies are whining loudly, because the president is asking that about $4 billion in loopholes and subsidies be eliminated for the oil industry. And there is no reason at all why these should not be eliminated. The loopholes and subsidies are meant to help industries that are necessary to the health of the nation, but are struggling to survive.

The Big Oil companies are certainly not struggling to survive. While ordinary Americans are struggling in this recession, the Big Oil companies are recording massive and record-breaking profits -- and have been throughout the recession. There is absolutely no reason for them to not pay their fair share of taxes. In fact, the president is not even taking away all of their subsidies. Last year, the Big Oil companies enjoyed over $7 billion in subsidies. The president is only asking that $4 billion be eliminated. Personally, I'd like to see all of the oil company subsidies eliminated.

Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute (the lobbying arm of Big Oil), thinks President Obama is being unfair to his industry. First, he claimed that the oil companies receive no subsidies. That's an outrageous lie. Getting $7 billion in tax breaks is a long way from no subsidies. Then he said the president's tax cut plan was "discriminating" against Big Oil. That's even more ridiculous. Asking any person or company to pay their fair share of taxes when they are making billions of dollars in profits is not discrimination -- it is just common sense.

I find it impossible to feel sorry for the Big Oil companies. They certainly have no compassion for the consumer, and happily raise gas prices even though they are already making record profits. It's time for them to pay their taxes (just like workers and small businesses have to do). They've had a free ride on the backs of consumers and taxpayers for far too long. It needs to end.

More Hypocrisy From The U.S. Government

Politicians from both American political parties like to brag about the United States being the bulwark of freedom and human rights, and a nation that exports those ideas to the rest of the world. We are even told that the U.S. government actively works to oppose human rights abuses and institute democratic reforms around the world. I wish that was true, but if it ever was, it no longer is (and hasn't been for a long time).

The truth, whether we want to admit it or not, is that there is something much more important to our government and the politicians that run it than freedom, democracy, or human rights. That something is corporate profits. There are countless instances of our government supporting brutal dictatorships (or monarchies) when there was money to be made by the giant corporations. And there are an equally large number of instances where our government helped to overthrow democratically-elected governments because they were viewed as a threat to corporate profits.

It is common knowledge, although many Americans prefer not to believe it, that the United States government was an active participant in the overthrow of democratic-elected governments in Iran and Chile. The reason was that these governments were socialist-inclined, and were likely to seize their own natural resources (oil in Iran and copper in Chile) and use them for the betterment of their own people rather than the enrichment of American corporations. And these two examples are far from the only times the U.S. government has interfered in the affairs of foreign countries for corporate benefit.

U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Has Sordid History

If there is a single organization that supports increasing the vast income and wealth gap between the richest Americans and the rest of us, it is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (USCOC).   The name of this organization would seem to make one think that they would be in support of policies that would favor all American businesses.   But that is not true.   They favor the huge corporations and the richest Americans over all others -- including America's small business men and women.

They have consistently opposed policies that would help ordinary Americans, both small businesses and workers, in favor of helping only the richest Americans.   And they get a lot of their money from foreign corporations, which is no surprise since they have actively supported the outsourcing of American jobs for many years now.   But that is just the beginning.   The USCOC has a long and rather sordid history of supporting policies and candidates that would hurt most Americans.   Here is a partial list of their activities that was composed by the blog Think Progress:

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has long opposed women’s rights. For example, the Chamber lobbied against Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) bill to allow victims of rape to file a lawsuit against their defense contractor employers. The Chamber also lobbied against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act, and numerous other bills to address systematic gender inequality.

– The U.S Chamber of Commerce has been the driving force against consumer, worker, and public safety laws for nearly a century. This year, itlobbied against regulating BPA, a chemical found to cause birth defects and genital mutations. The Chamber has a history of fighting work place safety regulations, the Clean Air Act, the Mine Safety Act, and other fundamental programs used to strengthen American society.

— The U.S. Chamber of Commerce helped President Bush in his attempt to privatize Social Security and his drive to deregulate Wall Street. Even during President Roosevelt’s era, the Chamber lobbied against the New Deal agenda, especially the passage of Social Security. After its members helped cause the Great Depression, the Chamber still fought against regulating Wall Street as well as measures such as unemployment insurance. Chamber officials charged that Roosevelt was attempting to “Sovietize America.”

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is responsible for many of the policies that have made America the most unequal in terms of income/wealth distribution in the industrialized world. On tax policy, the Chamber has pushed efforts to repeal the estate tax while helping to pass the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Corporate tax loopholes promoted by the Chamber ensure that corporations like ExxonMobil pay zero corporate income taxes while regular American workers foot much of the Treasury’s bill. The Chamber also opposed the creation of a minimum wage, and has lobbied against nearlyevery increase in the federal minimum wage.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn’t even necessarily represent American businesses. As first reported by ThinkProgress, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently began a fundraising program soliciting foreign corporations to give to the Chamber’s account that in turn was used to run attack ads during the midterm elections. The Chamber admitted that it fundraises from foreign donors, but has refused to reveal how it finances its political campaign expenditures. ThinkProgress noted that the Chamber has aided its foreign members by lobbying this year to kill a bill to close tax loopholes for businesses that ship jobs overseas, and has even sponsoredseminars to teach businesses how to ship their jobs to places like China.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has consistently sided with polluters and the fossil fuel industry. Not only has the Chamber challenged the science of climate change, but after BP’s oil spill, Chamber CEO Tom Donohue said American taxpayers should pay for the clean up.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce practices the politics of division and hate when it serves their corporate interests. Throughout 2010, the Chamber worked closely with hate television star Glenn Beck, who calls President Obama a “racist” who has a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” Top Chamber lobbyists met secretly with Beck at a meeting in June to plan the midterm elections, and Beck has sponsored on-air fundraisers for the Chamber. Similarly, the Chamber joined Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) to eagerly brand political opponents — like labor organizers and liberal intellectuals — as communists during McCarthy’s red scare.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has worked to give corporations unfettered control of government. For instance, the Chamber successfully filed an amicus brief in the Citizens United case to roll back nearly a century of campaign finance laws. Because of the Chamber’s efforts, corporations can spend unlimited amounts in American elections. Now the Chamber is attempting to repeal legislation aimed at discouraging American businesses from bribing foreign governments.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce fought every attempt at health reform, from Truman to Johnson to Nixon to Clinton to Obama’s efforts to help the American people gain access to quality health care. The Chamber eventried to stop the passage of Medicare under President Johnson.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce often places the profits of its member companies over American foreign policy objectives. Last year, the Chamberlobbied against President Obama’s efforts to place economic sanctions on Iran. In 1941, the Chamber was one of the most outspoken opponents of intervening in World War II (Chamber officials feared that war would give Roosevelt more power and wartime spending would lead to higher deficits, then higher taxes).

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a sordid history with civil rights. It opposed key planks of the Civil Rights Act, and lobbied against the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Recently, the Chamber paid for campaign advertising to help Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY), who told ThinkProgress he too opposed the ADA.

Corporate Welfare Alive And Well In Texas

Even when Texas was finishing each biennium with a surplus of dollars, they remained one of the states with the lowest-paid state employees and could not seem to find the money to cover poor and working class children with health care insurance. But they always had the money to hand out huge "welfare" payments to corporations. That's because the state Republican leaders are not just conservative -- they are corporate-owned conservatives.

Now the state is experiencing a cash crunch. They are going to have a $15 to $18 billion shortfall in the coming biennium. They have already asked state agencies to cut another 5% from their budgets on top of budget cuts required in the recent past. Now they are talking about extending the state sales tax (one of the highest in the nation) to products and services that have always been exempt from the tax.

This will be a huge tax increase that will be borne mainly by the poor and working classes (since they will be paying a much larger portion of their income on these new taxes). The Republicans will claim this is not a raising of taxes, since they won't be raising the tax rate but only extending the tax to more products and services. That is a lie. The simple fact is that if you must pay more in taxes than in the past, then your taxes have been raised -- regardless of what kind of word-games the Republicans want to play.

But rest assured that while state agencies are tightening their belts, state employees are being laid off, citizens are receiving less state services and Texans are paying higher taxes, there is one program that won't be touched -- corporate welfare. While ordinary Texans will be hurting, hundreds of millions of dollars of state money will continue to flow into the coffers of corporations.

One of the most egregious of these corporate welfare programs is the Texas Enterprise Fund. This is a special fund containing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that is paid to corporations that are either moving to Texas or creating new jobs in Texas. The problem is that this is just a corporate pay-off and has nothing to do with whether a corporation locates in Texas or not.

The real reasons a corporation might want to locate is Texas are several, and none of them involve getting a pay-off from the Texas Enterprise Fund. Among these are:

- Texas is a low-tax state for corporations. It does not have an income tax. Most of our taxes are raised from the regressive sales tax which is borne by consumers and not corporations.

- Texas is an anti-union state. It has a "right to work" law which says a person doesn't have to join a union even if hired into a union shop (meaning that worker can get union-won benefits without contributing to or joining the union). This has been a very effective union-busting technique.

- Texas has a growing workforce that is willing to work for low wages and few benefits (out of necessity).

- Texas has very good ways to get a corporation's goods to market -- including excellent shipping ports, rail systems and highway systems (although these are beginning to crumble from Republican neglect).

- Texas is an energy-rich state. While consumers pay high energy costs, corporations do not (they get very low "sweetheart" rates from the energy companies).

As one can easily see, there are many reasons why a corporation might want to move to Texas but they don't involve pay-offs from the Texas Enterprise Fund. This fund is little more than a boondoggle that doesn't accomplish what it is supposed to do. Many of the corporations receiving this money do not live up to their contractual obligations (job creation).

Take for example the Countrywide Financial Corporation, which received $20 million from the fund to bring thousands of new jobs to Texas. But when the bottom fell out of the housing industry, they went broke and were bought by Bank of America -- and the contract with the state was revoked.

Another recipient was the Voight Corporation, which received $35 million. They have not created the amount of new jobs that they contracted to create. So what does the Republican leadership of Texas do? They rewrite the contract and give them several more years to comply. And these are not the only ones failing to live up to their obligations after receiving taxpayer money. Governor Perry (pictured) has admitted that at least 11 other corporate contracts have been rewritten in the past year or so.

Frankly, I have to doubt whether the Texas Enterprise Fund is doing Texas any good at all, especially in the midst of this recession and budget deficit. The fund should be included in the cuts being made to Texas agencies and programs. In fact, it is time to end all the corporate welfare.