On Thu, 9 May 2002, Nathan Newman wrote:
> So what line items in the budget do you consider the worst parts of the
> corporate welfare state?
-It's not just what's there (CTJ estimated the total corporate welfare bill -at $50 billion per annum, everything from B2 avionics to suburban sprawl -to bogus export subsidies). It's what *isn't* there -- spending on -education, health care, investment, higher minimum wages, etc. As a -result, working stiffs such as myself go into debt (92K and counting, -though I start repayments next month) -- money, I should note, I owe -directly to the Department of Education. Instead of a welfare state, the -US has a dire, twisted rentier state.
You made a different statement before which was that federal spending had increasingly gone to the corporate sector. But out of a $2 trillion federal budget, and about another trillion dollars at the state and local level, the money goes overwhelmingly to poor and working class folks. If there's a problem, it's that it tilts to retirees over investments in the early years of life, such as in education, but eliminating chronic poverty in old age and taking the burden of funding the retirement and health care of parents off of working class folks is no small thing. Student loans are subsidized through lower interest rates (something Bush tried to cut back on last month and was forced to rapidly retreat from), so while its not a giant in dollar terms, subsidizing higher education is probably less progressive (since it goes disproportionately to the wealthier folks in private schools) than most spending.
- Nathan Newman