Quote:
Originally Posted by Major
In the spirit of inclusiveness, don't forget about civic welfare with all the do nothing government jobs.
I'd like my more educated brethren explain to me how corporate welfare works. Corporations obtain tax breaks and incentives to keep more of their own money. It's their money, not ours or the government's. A small price to pay in consideration that corporations provide jobs and feed our economy. What's the payback for social welfare, except more of it.
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Like assistance to the poor, some government assistance to corporations makes sense, and some we might all agree is "corporate welfare" Some examples:
It probably made sense for the feds to bail out the car companies in 2008/9--they were crucial employers and as another poster noted, the government made a tidy profit.
But the feds probably went overboard with their (at the time necessary) assistance to the big banks, as witnessed by the banks' extraordinary profits over the past few years with few apparent trickle down effects or return to the Treasury (are there enough retail bank offices in your neighborhood?).
A great recent example of corporate welfare is the Energy Dept proposal (still under discussion) to force electric utilities to buy coal to hold in reserve.