All's Fair in Welfare?

Brian Doherty from the October 1997 issue

Both the White House and Congress made noise about cutting back "corporate welfare" in 1995. But neither has delivered much, says a new study from the Cato Institute.

The study identifies dozens of giveaways to corporate interests. Such spending adds up to $65 billion a year, most of it concentrated in agriculture, exports, high tech, and energy. It includes such items as helping car companies develop new vehicles, selling federally produced electricity at below-market rates to ski resorts, and paying food corporations subsidies for foreign advertising.

The study focuses on 55 specific programs, which cost $37.7 billion in fiscal 1996. The 1997 budget increases spending on those programs by half a billion, after some cuts from 1995 to 1996, for total two-year cuts of only 13 percent. The study is available at www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp_028es.html.