If I Have To Show My EBT Card, You Should Too!: The Invisibility of Corporate Welfare

[Lyric]

I think that people who receive corporate welfare (including bank bailouts) ought to be forced to disclose exactly how much taxpayer money they get with every advertisement they produce. There ought to be a law that every television commercial, every printed ad, every newspaper circular, every radio spot, every poster, every flyer, and every complementary corporate keychain/coaster/coffee mug has to be printed with a big, fat, NON-fine-print label (or SLOW voice transcription, for radio) that says:

WE RECEIVED $XXX MILLION DOLLARS IN TAXPAYER MONEY THIS YEAR.
YOUR SHARE OF THAT AMOUNT WAS $XXX.XX FOR EVERY PERSON IN YOUR HOME.
WE ALSO AVOIDED PAYING $XX MILLION DOLLARS IN TAXES.
OUR CEO MAKES $XX MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR,
AND GOT $XXX MILLION IN BONUSES AND STOCK PERKS.
THANK YOU FOR GIVING US YOUR MONEY.

It needs to be HUGE and it needs to be EVERYWHERE.

Why? Because I'm sick and tired of the invisibility of corporate welfare.

The biggest reason that average people tend to resent the hell out of public assistance for the poor is because they have NO FREAKING IDEA how much money we spend on the wealthy corporate elites. They don't see that every day. CEO's aren't out there using Food Stamp cards, even though the money they buy their consumer goods with can be just as taxpayer-subsidized as the people who use EBT cards. However, I don't see anyone using an EBT card to purchase a yacht. I don't see anyone using an EBT card to buy a Mercedes. I don't see anyone purchasing fuel for their personal Learjet with a freaking EBT CARD.

People don't SEE corporate welfare. They think that those companies are 100% self-made, and that whatever tax breaks they get are small and insignificant compared to the "good" that they do for society. They have no idea what's really going on. They think that the tax money taken from their checks is largely being used to give free money to lazy poor people. They don't realize that many of these enormous and unbelievably wealthy corporations, banks, and financial entities use federal tax dollars to start and/or maintain their businesses, while paying practically NOTHING in the way of federal taxes themselves. And the profits they make from those businesses, they use to elect politicians who then turn around and create MORE ways for the rich to get richer while the rest of us beg on our knees for a pittance when we lose our jobs.

The wealthy are very careful to keep themselves separated from the rest of us. They put on a show of responsibility and luxury, meant invoke that odd mixture of envy and admiration that intimidates us into silence around them...when the fact of the matter is that without the paychecks of people like US propping them up, very few of them would HAVE the wealth they so jealously hoard.

It's not fair. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of businesses that flat-out WOULD NOT EXIST without the free tax giveaways they get every year. Those people shouldn't be allowed to HIDE. Welfare recipients have to sit in waiting rooms across America and have their lives examined down to the smallest detail by social workers representing We The People. Food Stamp recipients have to use EBT cards that make it clear who's paying for those groceries. WIC recipients have to stand there holding up the line while those huuuuge WIC certificates are filled out by hand--no hiding THAT! People who receive government checks have to cash them--at banks, at grocery stores, at check-cashing businesses, at department stores--and people SEE them do it. And then those people go home and complain about those "lazy" people on welfare, drinking the work sweat of the nation. They have no clue that the amount of federal corporate subsidies, combined with the taxes those companies AVOIDED paying, the profits from lavishly-overpriced defense contracts that were just awarded without any competition whatsoever, and the damage these companies do to the environment that WE have to pay to clean up, equals so much more than "welfare" for poor people that it staggers the mind. They only know what they SEE.

Well, it's time to SEE the truth. I'm sick and tired of poor people being the ONLY welfare recipients who have to pay a social price for the help that they get. I'm sick of not KNOWING exactly how much money we're giving away to the wealthy--and not having those numbers easily available, without any hope of refutation, when I'm arguing with people who think that TANF and FOOD STAMPS are the REAL "financial problem" in America. If the wealthy can take taxpayer money, then they can damned sure own up to it when they're running ads to increase their personal profits.

:rant:

[Newest Reality]

1. The working poor and destitute do not

have a party that represents them and advocates are far and few between.

The corporations and insanely wealthy do have representation, both politically and via corporate media. They have the very best representation that money can buy. As they expect, their interests are catered to and coddled while their excess and greed are deflected with distractions like loud angry voices pointing with big, media fingers at the least among us, (and now the "middle class") with scorn, blame and disrespect.

The result is obvious, and it works well. It is not going away until we decide to make it stop. That's going to take the kind of effort and sacrifice that is quite different from being asked to cover the cost of the free-ride, expected from the privileged, that we are being TOLD to pay now in terms of worker's benefits, pay-scales, assistance programs, et al.

They have power because they took it from us. They have an inordinate amount of wealth because, regardless of how you slice it, they have exploited our work and the profits of it to the point that we are expected to merely subsist as meaningless cogs in a heartless machine that, these days, guarantees more humongous profits and concentration of wealth while assuring us, (proportionally) with far less then we thought we'd ever have to make do with.

[KT2000]

2. Excellent! n/t

[jwirr]

3. Better yet we should take them back to the good old days when

they sent us this little coupon book of pretty paper bills and made us pay with them. Very visible to everyone around you. Oh and their money should have to be published in the local newspaper like they used to do for the poor allotments. Names, addresses, etc.

[MountainLaurel]

4. As always, hon

You hit the nail on the head.

:hug:

[lib_wit_it]

5. While we wait for this requirement for corporate welfare kings and queens, progressive aProgressive

groups need to get this info out there.