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Forum Post: Corporate Welfare, Another Perspective

Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 16, 2011, 6:07 a.m. EST by GypsyKing (8708)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

I wonder how many of us have considered the actual amount of corporate walfare that has gone on in our country over the years? I will just give two examples:

Tax dollars; money out of the pockets of average Americans, built the huge network of hydro electric dams in this country. Why then should average Americans pay corporations for the power produced by those hydroelectric dams? There are "public utility commissions" across this country charged with the job of keeping those companies honest, but we all know that those utility commissions are long since bought off, and don't regulate anything at all, particularly not the perks given them by utility companies on top of their useless taxpayer sponsored paychecks.

Another example is the enormous public expendature to build America's public universities. Why then, is all the research done at those universities just handed over to corporations that turn this tax sponsored research into products, like perscription medicines that the very people taxed to build the universities have to pay outrageous prices for?

There are as many examples of this as you could shake a stick at. Why are we not entitled to the benefits of the facilities created with our own taxdollars?

16 Comments

16 Comments


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[-] 2 points by divineright (664) 12 years ago

Excellent point. If citizens aren't sharing in the profits, we shouldn't be investing.

[-] 1 points by Nevada1 (5843) 12 years ago

Hi Gypsy, Good post. Best Regards, Nevada

[-] 1 points by gestopomillyy (1695) 12 years ago

you share in the society that is created by these expenditures, i.e. hot and cold running water inside every private home. the existence of a medicine that saves a life. isnt that the pay off?

[-] 1 points by GypsyKing (8708) 12 years ago

Of being ruled by the anti-social? No, I'm sure none of the rest of us could figure out plumbing! Ha, ha, ha. You guys really crack me up sometimes! This is such an nonseqitor that it must have been computer generated.

[-] 1 points by nkp (33) 12 years ago

or we could just not fund these things and save $$$ on taxes

[-] 1 points by GypsyKing (8708) 12 years ago

Naw, we don't want universities or electrical power. If we didn't have them we could just go straight back to the dark ages. Good plan!

[-] 1 points by nkp (33) 12 years ago

private $$$

[-] 1 points by GypsyKing (8708) 12 years ago

Or just plain "me." The social development of a two-year-old.

[-] 1 points by nkp (33) 12 years ago

company pays for power plant, company make money, gov't no paid them, we no pay more to gov't everyone happy

[-] 1 points by GypsyKing (8708) 12 years ago

I can't follow this line of reasoning. It isn't specific enough. The devil is in the details.

[-] 1 points by Rabart (13) 12 years ago

Koch brothers http://www.nationofchange.org/koch-brothers-alec-and-savage-assault-democracy-1323529391

The latest chapter of the Koch brothers disdain for public service and safety confirms much of what we've learned through our Koch Brothers Exposed campaign, which has linked the billionaire right wing brothers to disastrous oil spills, devastating land grabs and attacks on Social Security and public education.

Boycott Koch Products! Or Not… Not a bad idea right? But first we need to know what not to buy. The list is too long. forget it.

[-] 1 points by GypsyKing (8708) 12 years ago

Yeah, we're talking about one really big, interconnected monster here. We can't tackle them one at a time. We'd never get to the end of the list. Somehow we have to get at the whole problem.

[+] -4 points by danmi (66) 12 years ago

Fox news ROCKS!!!!!!

[-] 1 points by Frizzle (520) 12 years ago

The sad thing is that the free-marketeers are so against welfare. Yet when those hand outs are done toward corporations they stay quiet.

[-] 3 points by GypsyKing (8708) 12 years ago

This amounts to "welfare" for the richest and most privilaged people in our society on a massive scale, and these same people have the gall to complain when the most vulnerable are given the barest means of subsistence.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23822) 12 years ago

True.