Corporate Entitlement Welfare KingsJudson Phillips
Aug 22, 2023
Our federal government is spending way too much. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the federal government will spend about $6.2 trillion this year. When you consider that revenues are expected to be $4.8 trillion, our federal government is spending far more than they take in. This has resulted in about $33 trillion in national debt.
The corporate welfare kings have taken advantage of a federal government willing to spend more than they have. While average Americans squeak by in this era of high inflation and low confidence in the economy, the D.C. lobbying class has a sense of entitlement to federal funds. This is a problem that constitutional minded politicians need to address.
One vexing problem is figuring out how the massive numbers of lobbyists in Washington have impacted the growth of government. The high water mark for the number of lobbyist was 2007 when there were 14,816 and last year there were 12,644. The amount spent on lobbying has gone from $3 million in 1960 to well over $3 billion in 2022. The massive amount of spending is no coincidence.
This established lobbying presence in Washington has created a new entitlement culture. With all the lobbyists pushing for appropriations and special interest favors, we now have large corporations looking for handouts instead of trying to protect them from over taxation and too much regulation. Lobbying is part of our system, but the current way lobbying is conducted is more so with a handout for taxpayer cash rather than petitioning for redress of grievances.
One piece of legislation that was a magnet for lobbyists seeking cronyism and handouts was the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. That bill was loaded with corporate welfare projects. The House Ways & Means Committee released a report on April 25, 2023, the Joint Committee on Taxation’s (JCT) estimated that the advertised cost of the bill was half of what it likely would cost – about $570 billion. The Committee cited “the new advanced manufacturing credit for wind, solar, and batteries will cost $136 billion – over four times higher than JCT’s original $31 billion score.” They estimated that the advanced credit for batteries was $197 billion and IRA tax credits were over $1 trillion. The reason why all the inflation in what the advertised cost was of the bill versus the actual cost is because of all the lobbyists pushing for provisions in the bill hiking the cost to the taxpayer.
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Source:
https://townhall.com/columnists/judsonphillips/2023/08/22/corporate-entitlement-welfare-kings-n2627332
