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Cutting Corporate Welfare
In this groundbreaking pamphlet, based on testimony he delivered before Congress, Ralph Nader describes how corporations are picking our pockets, and what we can do to stop them.
While the United States continues to experience unprecedented cuts in social service programs and millions of Americans go without health insurance, massive corporations continue to reap huge sums of taxpayer money through "corporate welfare"—corporate subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, and tax escapes. Cutting Corporate Welfare details numerous appalling examples of corporate welfare, the giveaway of the public airwaves, which by definition belong to the people, to private radio and television stations (including the latest $70 billion gift of the digital spectrum); taxpayer subsidies for giant defense corporation mergers and commercial weapons exports to governments overseas; and the practice of making patients pay twice for drugs—first, as taxpayers subsidize the drugs’ development, and again, as patients, after the federal government gives monopolistic control over the chemical’s manufacture to a price-gouging drug company.
Cutting Corporate Welfare sounds a wake-up call for those concerned about how we are being pick-pocketed by big business, and what we can do to stop it.
While the United States continues to experience unprecedented cuts in social service programs and millions of Americans go without health insurance, massive corporations continue to reap huge sums of taxpayer money through "corporate welfare"—corporate subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, and tax escapes. Cutting Corporate Welfare details numerous appalling examples of corporate welfare, the giveaway of the public airwaves, which by definition belong to the people, to private radio and television stations (including the latest $70 billion gift of the digital spectrum); taxpayer subsidies for giant defense corporation mergers and commercial weapons exports to governments overseas; and the practice of making patients pay twice for drugs—first, as taxpayers subsidize the drugs’ development, and again, as patients, after the federal government gives monopolistic control over the chemical’s manufacture to a price-gouging drug company.
Cutting Corporate Welfare sounds a wake-up call for those concerned about how we are being pick-pocketed by big business, and what we can do to stop it.
96 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2000
About the author
Ralph Nader
144 books269 followersAmerican attorney, author, lecturer, political activist, and candidate for President of the United States in five elections, including the last election 0f 2008, with his role in the 2000 election in particular being subject to much debate.
Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer rights, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government. Nader is the first Arab American presidential candidate in the U.S.
Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer rights, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government. Nader is the first Arab American presidential candidate in the U.S.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 2, 2015
People that think 'welfare queens' are the problem should do a little more reading and discover the true source of money grubbing in this country, the corporate 'welfare kings'.
Why does it seem none of these proposed solutions have ever been implemented?!? Oh yeah corruption.
Why does it seem none of these proposed solutions have ever been implemented?!? Oh yeah corruption.
July 15, 2024
AN IMPASSIONED CRITICIZE OF "WELFARE FOR THE RICH”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) is of course a famous consumer activist and progressive political activist (including six runs for President), as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney; he has written numerous books, such as 'Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win,' 'Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, ;The Good Fight : Declare Your Independence and Close the Democracy Gap,' etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 2000 book, "Corporate welfare---the enormous and myriad subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, tax loopholes, debt revocations, loan guarantees, discounted insurance and other benefits conferred by government on business---is a function of political corruption. Corporate welfare programs siphon funds from appropriate public investments, subsidize companies ripping minerals from federal lands, enable pharmaceutical companies to gouge consumers, perpetuate anti-competitive oligopolistic markets, injure our national security, and weaken our democracy... Patching the corporate drain on public resources will require an informed and mobilized citizenry that both forces changes in our systems... and demands careful and critical scrutiny by ... the citizens who lose out from government transfers of resources, privileges, and immunities to corporations. This pamphlet is part of such an effort to inform, arouse, and mobilize to change the corporate welfare state."
He observes that "No government agency is cozier with industry than the Department of Defense, and corporate welfare is pervasive at the agency famous for cost-overruns, waste, fraud, and abuse." (Pg. 21) He charges that while Clinton and Congress "gutted the welfare system for poor people... no such top-down agenda has emerged for corporate welfare recipients." (Pg. 23)
He is particularly incensed with professional sports teams owned by "megamillionaires" who threaten to move "unless the city bestows a glamorous, and extraordinarily expensive, publicly financed new stadium"; ironically, these new stadiums inevitably contain so many luxury boxes and high-priced seats that they "put watching the local team out of reach for significant portions of the town's population." He notes sadly, that most cities "choose subsidize the team, even in the many cases where scholastic athletics, not to mention the schools themselves, are massively underfunded." (Pg. 40)
He is critical of government bailouts (remember that this book was written well before the massive bailouts of 2008-2009!), observing, "These bailouts... are generally doled out to large corporations and industries. When a family-owned restaurant fails, no government intervenes to stop it from going belly up. If a small factory can't pay its bills, it goes out of business." (Pg. 69)
Nader's book, as with all of his writings, is very thought-provoking, and heartfelt; and is well worth reading, for any progressive thinkers out there.
Ralph Nader (born 1934) is of course a famous consumer activist and progressive political activist (including six runs for President), as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney; he has written numerous books, such as 'Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win,' 'Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, ;The Good Fight : Declare Your Independence and Close the Democracy Gap,' etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 2000 book, "Corporate welfare---the enormous and myriad subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, tax loopholes, debt revocations, loan guarantees, discounted insurance and other benefits conferred by government on business---is a function of political corruption. Corporate welfare programs siphon funds from appropriate public investments, subsidize companies ripping minerals from federal lands, enable pharmaceutical companies to gouge consumers, perpetuate anti-competitive oligopolistic markets, injure our national security, and weaken our democracy... Patching the corporate drain on public resources will require an informed and mobilized citizenry that both forces changes in our systems... and demands careful and critical scrutiny by ... the citizens who lose out from government transfers of resources, privileges, and immunities to corporations. This pamphlet is part of such an effort to inform, arouse, and mobilize to change the corporate welfare state."
He observes that "No government agency is cozier with industry than the Department of Defense, and corporate welfare is pervasive at the agency famous for cost-overruns, waste, fraud, and abuse." (Pg. 21) He charges that while Clinton and Congress "gutted the welfare system for poor people... no such top-down agenda has emerged for corporate welfare recipients." (Pg. 23)
He is particularly incensed with professional sports teams owned by "megamillionaires" who threaten to move "unless the city bestows a glamorous, and extraordinarily expensive, publicly financed new stadium"; ironically, these new stadiums inevitably contain so many luxury boxes and high-priced seats that they "put watching the local team out of reach for significant portions of the town's population." He notes sadly, that most cities "choose subsidize the team, even in the many cases where scholastic athletics, not to mention the schools themselves, are massively underfunded." (Pg. 40)
He is critical of government bailouts (remember that this book was written well before the massive bailouts of 2008-2009!), observing, "These bailouts... are generally doled out to large corporations and industries. When a family-owned restaurant fails, no government intervenes to stop it from going belly up. If a small factory can't pay its bills, it goes out of business." (Pg. 69)
Nader's book, as with all of his writings, is very thought-provoking, and heartfelt; and is well worth reading, for any progressive thinkers out there.
June 17, 2008
A very brief discussion of the topic. Not in depth, but gives some jumping-off points for further reading.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews