what are some examples of welfare that the wealthy and middle class get

Factual Questions
1

Whenever i argue welfare with someone i always try to point out that the middle class recieve their fair share of welfare, they just don’t know it.

However, so far i have only found a few examples of welfare for the middle and upper class

  1. State subsidized tuition in college, State governments pay around $12000 a year for every student’s in-state college tuition

  2. federally subsidized student loans (this is kinda minor though, i think only a few hundred a year per person)

  3. corporate welfare in a variety of forms such as agricultural subsidies and tax rebates to businesses that keeps businesses the middle and upper class work for afloat domestically and internationally. However i dont know if a tax rebate is really ‘welfare’, but a subsidy to farmers so they can maintain competetive prices is. Technically tariffs might also be a form of welfare as even though no money is given to americans, the government does function as a ‘babysitter’ in that situation.

are there any others? Whenever i argue something like universal healthcare or minimum wage increases people who make enough money to not need to worry about that stuff always talk about how evil welfare and relying on the government is and i like having this kind of ammo to pull the rug out of their illusionary viewpoints.

2

Putting “corporate welfare” into a Google search turned up these among 1.4 million web pages:

Corporate Welfare Headquarters Corporate Welfare Shame Page

Corporate Welfare Information Center
www.corporations.org

Corporate Welfare Search Engine
www.taxpolicy.com

Common Cause --Washington Watchdog

Cato Handbook for Congress: Corporate Welfare

Public Citizen | Corporate Welfare - Corporate Welfare

Nader’s Testimony on Corporate Welfare
www.nader.org

3

I think that “welfare” means AFDC and nothing else–depending on who you are talking to. In other words, be sure to define your terms or you’ll be waist deep in unnecessary headaches.

For example, if a community decides to give a tax break to a manufacturer to locate a plant there, some may call that welfare, others may not.

It’d be easier to know the nature of the debate and where you want to go with the welfare-to-middle-&-upper-class argument, as well as how you are defining terms.

For example, state subsidized education is hardly a form of government largesse when the argument behind it is that the market underproduces education. Same thing for infrastructure and many public services.

So if I am arguing about whether the government should support people who are down on their luck, e.g. AFDC, and you shoot back with education, I will tell you to quit trying to change the subject.

If you are just looking for examples of where government dollars go to people who aren’t poor, or where tax breaks go to people who aren’t poor, then you really aren’t talking about welfare, are you? For some inexplicable reason people worship farming and therefore we pile tons of money on the farm industry; but, that is about as far from helping the down on their luck as you can get. Many in the farming industry would do just fine in another industry, but subsidies keep them in farming. They don’t serve to help the congenitally lazy or egregiously unlucky (depending on how you view welfare), they distort incentives and keep otherwise productive people inefficiently employed instead of moving them to a place where they would do more good.

That said, I suppose you could mention the cap on payroll taxes to soc. sec., capital gains tax policy, the cut in dividend income tax, and tax breaks to firms who locate in the area. Trade barriers of any sort and farm subsidies; public services and infrastructure, of course; copywrite and patent protection to firms and individuals; soc. sec. payements to non-poor. I don’t have anything really specific. I hear about “corporate welfare”, but I have never seen any specific examples.

4

welfare = redistribution of funds to benefit other people and/or the government acting as a babysitter.

5

Sounds like the federal budget or any state budget to me.

:smiley:

6

Depends pretty much on the definiton of “welfare”, as others have noticed. And I assume we’re talking about the U.S.

Social security, for instance, provides benefits upon retirement, death and disability. The benefit amount depends upon the amount that the person (and employer) has contributed into the system, with minimums and maximums, but everyone is entitled to benefits.

Medicare provides benefits for all persons over age 65 who have met a certain minimum standard. Medicaid provides medical benefits for the indigent and a few others.

7

Unemployment insurance.

8

If you use a very broad definition of welfare you can include things like public schools, public libraries, (subsidized) museums, orchestras etc.

If you are wealthy enough you could do well without those institutions but it is very likely that you use at least some of them.

9

The tax deduction for mortgage interest on your home. The poor are often not in a position to buy a home, for the middle class the home is often the main asset and for the wealthy a home is often one of many investments.

10

Damn, you took mine. I would like to point that in addition you get a tax break on mortgage interest on your second home too, if you have one, or third or fourth…so some rich people benefit from this break even more than the middle class does.

11

Whew! That makes three of us. We may be the only ones. If you know what’s good for you, don’t discuss this with your friends and relatives.

There’s also farm subsidies, tax-deductible Hummers and those B-2’s that the Air Force says it doesn’t need, but which are being built anyway.

And as a corporate cog, I’ve had access to a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account for medical expenses for nigh on 20 years. See, it’s more important that I pay 30% less for my medical expenses than those living paycheck to paycheck because I earn so much more, which means that I probably create jobs. Hell, I’ve probably created several jobs just in the time it took me to type this.

12

When arguing about corporate welfare (which, honestly, I try not to do; anyone complaining about AFDC a: usually doesn’t know what AFDC stands for and b: is usually about as open-minded as a clam), it helps to state specific examples.

-McDonald’s got $1.6 millon to promote Chicken McNuggets in Singapore from 1986 to 1994.

-Exxon claimed nearly $300 million in tax deductions on the settlement they paid when the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound.

-Pillsbury got $11 million to promote the Pillsbury Dough Boy in foreign countries.

-When Sears was going down the crapper in 1989, Sears sold the Sears Tower in Chicago and announced plans to move operations to either Texas or North Carolina. Illinois, standing to lose about six thousand jobs if Sears moved, gave Sears $178 million in local tax breaks, $61.1 million from the state treasury for site preperation (they moved just outside of Chicago), and $7 million in reduced sales and income tax. Four years later, Sears fired 50,000 people nationwide-4,900 of them in Illinois. That’s 1,100 saved jobs at $254,545.46 each.

All examples taken from Downsize This!

This has been Tentacle Monster, the only liberal in the military.

13

Perhaps this is tangential, Wesley, but maybe, just maybe you should be doing this whole thread the other way around. You should understand how ridiculous it sounds when you come to a board and ask for support for your own opinions. The fact that you don’t have any really makes people question the exact manner by which you came to that opinion.

So, perhaps you should approach the available evidence with an open mind, instead of asking others to provide you with data that collaborates your preconcieved notions.

At that: $180 million for my local football stadium from my tax-dollars. So where do I sign up for the free football tickets? Oh, you mean it’s still a private venue run by a for-profit organization that just wants to make money? Shocking.

I’m a libertarian, and I certainly have nothing against business, but “Corporate Welfare” is even stupider than other welfare.

14

you’re just trying to convert me to your own libertarian views under the guise of ‘having an open mind’ as far as i can tell, making you no better than me. Besides this isn’t a debate. I’ve debated libertarians and i do not find their views to be anything more than political opinion dressed up as constituional mandate.

15

With our current income tax system, income made as interest is taxable, and interest paid out is counted as “negative income” and is therefore deductible. The government has disallowed interest on loans for personal items, based on the idea that they don’t want to encourage people to take on debt for purchases with no long-term value. But interest paid out for investments, including your home, is deductible.

You may not like treating interest this way, but in no way can it be viewed as a handout. Every proposal to phase out the home interest deduction has also had a flip side: interest income would not be taxable. A tax system that taxed interest income but didn’t allow the deduction of interest paid out would be seriously broken.

Here’s another way to look at it. Let’s say I owe $200,000 on my house, and the loan is at 6%. I also have $200,000 in an investment account, earning 6% interest. Would I be better off keeping it that way, or using my cash to pay off the loan? Most people who view the home interest deduction as a benefit would say that you should leave it alone, because you don’t want to give that up. But the truth is that paying it off and leaving it alone are exactly the same. It then gets down to other considerations such as liquidity, which is as it should be.

16

If I was trying to convert you to Libertarianism, I would have actually mentioned it more than in passing in the last sentence of my post. And, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of agreeing with you here. We both have the same policy objectives: ending public programs that introduce unneccessary market ineffeciences, etc. blah blah blah… for corporate bodies. I don’t think that we should do it too much for poor people, but a little compassion here and there doesn’t hurt. I even find some aspects of socialism acceptable as long as they only apply to low-income people and we avoid massive public boondoggles like Social Security. Give poor old people money all you want. Giving it to all old people, people that could have saved on their own, or could still work? I disagree there.

I’ve debated socialists before and I do not find their views to be anything more than political opinion dressed up by naievity and a little bit too much effin’ weed.

When did I claim to be the second coming of Christ? I’m not. I have political views, you have political views. Why do they have to be something more than political views? And if we support them with a broad survey of history, political thought, and most of all, the available evidence, so what?

The point I am making is that you undercut your own arguments by saying that you have a view and now you want us to come and support that view for you so that you can, “[have] this kind of ammo to pull the rug out of their illusionary viewpoints.” I would have infinitely more respect for your viewpoints if you came in here making a claim and supporting it, rather than making a claim and asking us to help support it.

It just so happens that I do generally tend to agree with your viewpoint on “Corporate Welfare”, but still, what a horroble way to make a point. More troublingly, it suggests that you have not really taken the time to reivew the available evidence on this issue and form your own opinion on it. You have a certain viewpoint because you want to have a certain viewpoint. Maybe it will make you a rebel, or cool, or get you laid, or you’re really really bored. I don’t care. It just looks bad for you; what a glaringly obvious way to say that you really don’t know what you’re talking about but that you know what you want to talk about.

17

‘Wesley Clark: what are some examples of welfare that the wealthy and middle class get’ (Insert question mark. Thus: [?])

‘Wesley Clark: welfare= redistribution of funds to benefit other people and/or the government acting as a babysitter.’

Well? Yes.

Duckster: ‘Sounds like the federal budget or any state budget to me.’

Truly. “Some examples of welfare that the wealthy and middle class get” . . . damn. That’s a hard one. Virtually every member of the House of Representatives and of the Senate are wealthy, and are still paid by the taxpayers and given benefits that would make even the UAW drool, so that would be too easy, as examples of welfare to the rich go. Government employees, who now comprise nearly 25% of the entire workforce, are pretty solidly middle class, with the exception of the most vital of those employees – the military. And it would be tough to make a case that every one of those government employees are as vital to the national, state, or local interest as the paper avalanche they perpetrate to justify themselves would suggest. So if the idea is that of the government paying ‘welfare,’ then the thought should best begin with government taking from the taxpayers in order to see to it that government stays wealthy and/or middle class without a responsibility to demonstrate the usefulness of the employees, programs, policies, entitlements, benefits, etc. that they pay generously to themselves. Does anyone want to argue that the money taken from the public and paid into the D.A.R.E. program, to cite a random example, has paid any benefit other than as welfare to failed employees of the government?

And let’s get this straight right up front – The government does not produce any wealth, it consumes wealth produced by private, working citizens. The vast majority of the beneficiaries of the forcible taking and forcible redistribution of that wealth happen to be the same people the wealth was taken from in the first place. That is the whole idea of centralizing governance. We get a damned admirable military capability, a fine educational system, a thorough and resourceful judiciary – we get roads and parks and reasonable trade policies and stable currency and safe food and water. And, oh yeah, we also take pretty good, but not perfect, care of our less fortunate.

If providing the benefits of paying taxes to those who pay the taxes is to be counted as an evil thing, then I, for one, will stop paying taxes immediately. We did not invent government as an instrument devoted entirely to raising up those who have fallen upon difficulties, but rather as an organization barely tolerated, but necessary to provide those things that can only be done collectively. So – is building a road governmental welfare? A school? A library? You bet. That’s why we have a government. Is government perfect? Hell no. Far from it. Government is evil by definition, and serves only itself. That’s why some folks thought that writing a Constitution was a good idea.

Next question, then, Mr. Clark – what are some examples of welfare that are taken from the taxpayers, private and corporate, that they have a right to see a positive result from, but are simply squandered on the political motive of the month? Do the taxpayers exist to fulfill the motives and needs of those who want more, at their expense, or do they have a right to see a result that is commensurate with their contribution?

You see, taxes that have not been levied (money not stolen by government) for the purpose of answering political aims (to hand to those some think should have the money) doesn’t really count as welfare to those the money was not taken from. We pay quite alot, and we pay in order to see our collective interest answered, not simply to provide charity to the millions who have their hands out at any given moment.

Gairloch