If You Wanna Be Taken Seriously When Bitching About Welfare...

..then you bet not forget to mention the kind that is far & away the biggest drain on working people & society as a whole.  Wanna take a guess what that is?  It's not SSI, SNAP, Section 8, TANF, Medicaid or any of the other meager social welfare programs this country drops like crumbs from the tables of the wealthy onto the poor, disabled, elderly & disenfranchised, it's CORPORATE WELFARE.  If you fail to mention this pernicious kind of welfare when complaining about the other kind, it means you're either ignorant about the disproportionate amount being ciphoned from your paycheck by these bloodsuckers or just a plain old coward who prefers to punch down instead of UP where your anger belongs.  Stay with me here.

Trump is barely 2 months in office and has already announced major devastating cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, eliminating coverage of telehealth visits for Medicare recipients and signing a bill to cut Medicaid by $880 BILLION over the next decade.  For reference, one in 5 Americans relies on Medicaid to cover their healthcare needs.  Meanwhile he and his cronies will still be receiving taxpayer funded socialized medicine at Walter Reed & other top facilities in the nation because of course they will.  All this so the super-wealthy--billionaires and centi-billionaires like Musk, Bezos, the Koch family, Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet & Bill Gates--won't have to pay their fair share of federal taxes.



What Is Corporate Welfare?

"Free market" my ass.

The term "corporate welfare" was allegedly coined in the 1950s by consumer advocate Ralph Nader & refers to any program that unfairly aids large corporations or private businesses under the phony guise of "job creation".  These come in numerous forms, some of which I'll explore below but which also include loan guarantees, public contracts, grants, deferrals, debt write-offs & multiple tax benefits.  I strongly suggest looking into the subject, especially if social welfare gets under your skin.

Let's start with industry bailouts.  We call ourselves a capitalist country but true capitalism would let ALL businesses big, medium & small sink or swim on their own merit (see: free market theory), not engage in government bailouts when they've fucked their (our) money away.  That's selective socialism.  Yet this is exactly what our government does, bailing out banks, airlines, automakers & other "too big to fail" industries over & over to the tune of trillions.  Meanwhile small businesses & individuals are left high and dry when crises like COVID or the housing crash hit.  This is known as socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor (though in reality it's just oligarchy).  And as bad as it is, it's only one of many forms of corporate welfare.  

Fucking pathetic.

Subsidies that help giant entities like the agriculture industry are often advertised as helping the "little guy" but end up wasting billions boosting already-omnipotent corporations, helping them screw over small businesses & the buying public.  (See:  the corn subsidies farmers receive which are largely responsible for all the cheap, toxic High Fructose Corn Syrup in our diet).  Then giant companies like Walmart, DoorDash & Amazon turn around and thank the government by being the largest contributors to working people on welfare in society by grossly underpaying their workers.  (That's another fun fact:  The vast majority of non-disabled welfare recipients HAVE jobs, they just aren't paid a living wage).  So who are you really mad at when someone is putting in 40+ hours a week and still can't support themselves because they're paid slave wages?  The company who employs them while stealing their hard-earned income under the guise of "company profits," or the workers this country labels "essential" one week & expendable the next?  

The amount taken from YOUR check to fund & enable this bullshit is so much greater than you lose to social welfare programs it should be a conversation-ender.  Unfortunately, too many damn Americans don't know where their tax dollars actually go and assume they're being hoovered up by the poors (a result of cuts to public education funding perhaps?)  Here's a quote comparing social vs. corporate welfare spending in 1990: 

"More to the point, while more than 170 billion dollars is expended on assorted varieties of corporate welfare the federal government spends 11 billion dollars on Aid for Dependent Children. The most expensive means tested welfare program, Medicaid, costs the federal government 30 billion dollars a year or about half of the amount corporations receive each year through assorted tax breaks. S.S.I., the federal program for the disabled, receives 13 billion dollars while American businesses are given 17 billion in direct federal aid."

Emphasis mine.  I even color-coded it to make it easier to read since so many of y'all struggle with that.  (Evil greedy corporate handouts = red; necessary social programs = green).

This page shows how the Average American family pays $6,000 per year for corporate welfare--more if you earn over $72,000/year.  And how much does the average American earning $50,000/year pay for SNAP, the food assistance program that provides vital nutrition to millions of hungry children, (pregnant) women, elderly/disabled folks & families?  

A dime a day.  $36 per year.

Again, I put it in large bold print so you wouldn't miss it.  Those links are active & I suggest you click them if you doubt what I'm saying here.  
 

Gaping Tax Loopholes for The Rich

Tax breaks ARE corporate welfare, Bernie.  But yes.  Bad.

That brings us to what I consider to be probably the most egregious form of corporate welfare:  tax loopholes & benefits.  Federal taxes are used to fund everything from defense/national security to maintaining roads & bridges to funding public programs like education, space exploration, Social Security & emergency disaster relief.  While nobody enjoys paying taxes, they serve a critical role in maintaining society at all levels.  Anyone who uses these public services (which is basically everyone who travels on public roads or uses a public service like USPS or public schools) should contribute based on their income level.  However, if you have $1 million or more, you can squirrel it away in Swiss bank accounts to avoid paying taxes on it.  What's more, you can do this from the comfort of your own living room as many of these banks don't even require in-person meetings to open an account.  (I know because I looked into it once, just for funzies). 

This means the people most capable of paying federal taxes end up paying $0 while hardworking Americans are bled dry every tax season--increasingly so with bullshit like the "American Rescue Plan" that enables the IRS to watch online accounts like Paypal, Venmo, CashApp & all the rest while forcing workers to report earnings at much lower thresholds than in years past.  Now your little insignificant "side hustle," which you wouldn't even need if this country had humane labor laws, is being taxed to high hell.  WHILE PEOPLE LIKE TRUMP AND BEZOS PAY $0 ANNUALLY.  This is in addition to the various other tax credits, deductions & exemptions these entities receive.



Hypocrites, the Lot of You

OK, Boomer:  Baby Boomer-era kids smiling pretty for the camera in 1951.

Many people don't know that the baby boom (high birth rate) that took place between 1946 and 1964 was due to the social abundance resulting directly from the New Deal, which taxed the top earners at 75% of their income.  (Imagine such a program today!)  That period after WWII was the most well-off our country has ever been:  (white) families moved to the suburbs, NASA went to the moon, food was cheap & abundant for the 1st time, the "Better Living Through Chemistry" era of pharmaceuticals was in full swing, art/music/pop culture blossomed... and then those same Baby Boomers who had grown up enjoying the spoils of the New Deal turned around & slammed the door on the rest of us in the '80s with Reagan & his "small government" poison.  It's been all downhill ever since.  Predictably.

That's right, the generation that burned their bras & draft cards, fucked in the streets on LSD & attended Woodstock are the same ones now rabidly supporting Trump and his lackeys.  To those of us with eyes and at least 1 working brain cell, this makes 0 sense.  How do you go from being the most revolutionary generation in U.S. history to the most villainous, miserable creatures to ever stalk the planet?  Is the line from 'counterculture rebel/anti-authority badass ' to 'science-denying racist' a straight one?  Do tell.  🙎🏻‍♀

In conclusion, you can hopefully understand why it irritates me when wealthy assholes judge welfare recipients or call for cuts to these already strapped programs.  You can either allow employers to overwork/underpay their workers OR cut welfare programs--not both.  People have to eat & unless you want the streets of every city in this country to burn 24/7, 365, you're gonna have to choose which of these options you prefer.  (Neither of which includes killing off elderly or disabled Social Security recipients, btw.  Sorry, wannabe Nazis). 

In the meantime it would behoove a lot of you to actually learn where your tax dollars go before opening your hateful, un-Christlike mouths.  Unless you're a disability judge or government worker responsible for deciding who's worthy of assistance & who's not, you're in no position to judge whether someone "deserves" it either.  The U.S. is already the 2nd hardest country on Earth to be approved for SSI/disability (I have no clue what country is #1 but it's probably somewhere you wouldn't wanna live) so this idea that these gov't allotted dollars are just showered on people willy nilly is pure fantasy.  

Without a replacement program like Universal Basic Income, slashing the few meager social welfare programs that exist will lead to mass casualties & suffering.  But that was always the goal.  Well, maybe not THEE goal but a definite side bonus for these psychopathic greedy monsters who would rather watch a suffering elder or poor child die as the life leaves their eyes than give up a single dollar of the wages they've stolen from those they employ.  "Job creation" is not a positive thing if those jobs don't pay enough for basic survival needs, offer 0 benefits or chance of advancement & work people like dogs in sickness and in health, come rain or come shine or in the midst of a public health crisis like COVID which killed over 1 million Americans while the rest of the world was paid to stay home & not die.  This delusional belief that dead people & migrants are throwing elections & stealing trillions in federal aid money is just that, a delusion, and we're all about to pay for it while your fave billionaire or politician of either party continues partying it up on Martha's fucking Vineyard & paying $0 taxes for the privilege.

But go off about how the less fortunate are "stealing" from your paycheck I guess.  It gives me great pleasure to inform you that you will NEVER be on their level when it comes to money or power, so your butt-licking and bootlicking are all for naught.  Even a millionaire is closer to poverty than he is to having a billion dollars, another math factoid you might know if you'd gone to a decent public school.  Lord knows I didn't.  Elon & his ilk wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, but they might point & laugh if they noticed at all.  🔥🏃🏻‍♀👈 😂



Update 3/2/2025:  RFK, Jr. is threatening to block SNAP recipients from purchasing "sugary candy & drinks" with their EBT cards under the guise of improving the nation's health.  That's right, the party of "small government" is micromanaging what an already-struggling demographic can buy at the grocery store because it's not like we don't have bigger fish to fry as a nation.  🤬   Never mind that many SNAP recipients only buy "sugary junk" because of the low cost and/or high availability in the food deserts in which they live.  (In case you aren't familiar, food deserts generally have only stores like Family Dollar & maybe a gas station within a 35-40 mile radius--not even a Walmart or McDonald's and certainly no public transportation--and they're more common than you'd think.  I grew up in one).  You literally cannot find fresh fruits/vegetables, whole grains, lean meats or other healthy foods in these ghost towns, & a gallon of milk costs upwards of $7.  At times you can't find bottled water & the tap water certainly isn't fit to drink..  Which reminds me. 
     
People tend to buy what's available & affordable so unless you're going to address the food desert issue AND make healthy items like whole grains, lean proteins & healthy fats as affordable as the HFCS-laden junk in the center aisles, this move is only going to increase hunger & make it harder or impossible for poor people to meet their caloric needs, which is kinda the whole point of SNAP.  Not that ol' wormbrain or his Oompa Loompa Lord and savior give a damn about starving poors.  Teachers of the world should prepare to feed more hungry/fussy kids & store clerks better look out for more shoplifting of food items because terrible policies like this have direct consequences.  One thing about humans is they'll find a way to eat one way or another.