THE STENCH OF CORPORATE WELFARE – by Jim Hightower

Big corporations seems to be doing awfully well these days, scooping up record profits, getting massive tax breaks from the federal government, and cutting back on their employees. They're wallowing in wealth!

So, I ask you: Why do our cities and states keep funneling billions of dollars worth of corporate welfare to them every year? Governors, legislators, and mayors wail that they don't have the funds for such basics as schools, health care, and potholes... yet they try to out-do each other in offering the fattest tax breaks to the richest entities in our land.

Texas is one of the worst. My state routinely opens our public treasury in a whorish effort to attract corporate greedheads to move here. Now, a bill in the legislature would throw our tax dollars at even more of these roving corporate thrill seekers. And, get this: to make Texas even more alluring, the bill lowers the state's wage standards, allowing these giants to grab our favors while cutting the wages they must pay nearly in half!

This thing is stinkier than a skunk farm, yet the sponsors try to perfume it with the old flim-flam that the tax giveaways will create: JOBS! There's one little flaw in that promise: No state agency even audits the giveaway program! So no one knows whether the promised jobs are ever delivered or whether the corporations pay anywhere near middle-class wages.

Add to this absurdity another one, which is that nearly all corporations admit that they really don't base their relocation decisions on whether or not they get a juicy tax break. Things like an area's weather, life style, cultural offerings, education, and job skills are more important.

Of all the crying needs that states and cities should be funding, corporate welfare is dead last.

To learn how you can help stop these shameful giveaways,

call Good Jobs First: (202) 232-1616 or goodjobsfirst.org.