And working on social welfare issues close to 30 years and those of you who have read my writings know that if you most traditional Welfare Programs have been selfdefeating and have done a great deal of harm that is intended to help i found it fascinating pp on people are happy to criticize but to do welfare for the wealthy and then to have less criticism and less disapproval than those that try to help those that most need the help. Then the freeways people that are millionaires or billionaires. One is wellintentioned although not very effective so with that said we have an interesting form today talking about a new book that is available on amazon called welfare for the rich. And that is on sale right now and amazon. And then beyond that i will turn it over to our guest and show harvey is the founder former ceo and a Charitable Group with familyplanning issues around the world and the head of d kt Liberty Project which is a prominent defender of free speech as an entrepreneur and philanthropist, and is his fifth book his previous was one of the best on low income that i have seen. Its called the human cost of welfare to support the health but then lisa conyers who is an economist and consultant and frequent writer around the country working on a variety of issues and then offering comments after they get done talking today a resident fellow at the American Enterprise institute maybe the following already. And then how big business and Big Government steal your money. And a leading expert on corporate welfare but with all of that i will turn it over but if you want to tell us about welfare for the rich and how millionaires and billionaires keep ending up with our tax dollars. My pleasure. Thank you to all of you for joining us today. We are delighted to be around friends and colleagues. And we especially think michael for being our mc and then of course tim carney for taking part. Thank you to you all. And that the regular Welfare Program then we realize a great deal of subsidy payments we are very provide an as a core member of society and then to subsidize the incredible number of things with the different set of ways. Is not surprising that the government word subsidize wind and solar but we subsidized coal. We Subsidized Oil and gas. And then to be characterized by head crane some years ago. And those and that is just what they are. And then continue to provide subsidies to these companies. We subsidized farms and farmers and that under the farm bill and with the enormous amount of money spent to help team owners who are not exactly impoverished and then we subsidize as we get the complication one complicated emperor supports. But then the sugar of the United States cost twice than it does anywhere else. From the world market price so anyone that buys products containing sugar and zip should support the sugar barons in florida. And this is somewhat surprising but yes we subsidize apple and google and everything from elon musk. Let me begin with agriculture the farm bill which is virtually 100 billiondollar allotment every year. The check was 90 billion so it is big and then struggling farmers and shortly thereafter whom i otherwise would have gone out of business and lose their farms and so on. But the farm bill today has turned that upside down by for the biggest recipients. And the application and that is illustrated in a couple of ways. Penny is the billionaire paris in chicago and a nice person i have no reason to think she is not but that seems to me is a billionaire she probably doesnt require or need subsidies under the farm bill. She happens tos she is not a farmer so why should this happen . And the farm bill payments have also gone to support a Pheasant Farm in south dakota i have nothing against pheasant hunting thats just fine but there is no reason why they should take your money and mine and us through the federal farm bill to support the Pheasant Farm. The quintessential example and this is in the frank business not the farming and then got over 5 million in 2014 alone for farm bill subsidies it is unjust and unfair and undeserving and highly improper. And then to include tariffs in the book to recognize this is not a set up but then the system has been shaken down and turned out so strangely it has the same effect and without a good illustration of how far the system advantage in this case for the wealthy are the disadvantage for the poor has gone. Let me say first we are not discussing the trump terrace. Most of us are familiar. But that is a discussion for another time i want to draw attention to the decadesold tariffs that we have had all along. There are 17000 items calling the harmonized terrorist schedule of the government it is a strange kind of harmony were 3000 pages of mindnumbing complex citations of the exact amount a tariff could be charged with these small differences. But it burdens the low income at 12 or 14 percent of expenditures every year and burdens the wealthy between five and 6 percent every year. Among other things russias cantaloupes, canvas shoes are among the more highly taxed items through import tariffs. Why cantaloupe and honeydew did not is something i can only speculate but presumably cantaloupe farmers somewhere in the southwest went to the congressman and said were having trouble selling them can you arrange to get a tariff and then nobody noticed or cared and now and with thes items it is almost impossible to change or alter as friedman once remarked nothing so permanent there is a lot more program in washington dc. Quite simple example of high income low income tariff schedule which has two or three versions that the standard version is enlisted for three dollars with a 22. 5 percent tariff, a slightly more expensive and then have seven. 2 percent it is as though somebody sat down at some point and said how can we arrange the tariff schedule to advantage the wealthy and screw the poor . Im sure nobody did that. I hope nobody did but the way it has turned out is remarkably close. But then they give fishing lawyers and licenses and so on but it turns out they have a high import tariff but feather dusters have a very low import tariff. It doesnt take a genius to figure out that if they import feather gestures put the and then to restore those issues of the marketplace. We are often asked when we do interviews, what word you do about these things . In terms of a policy matter its very easy. Just eliminate the tariffs and all 17000 tariffs in the harmonized schedule. They do a lot of harm and make us pay more for everything a lot more for very few people and then only for a period. So now take it to the next . Thank you i want to talk about the Success Stories we came across for with research until i end up in the pockets of mailings and i just wanted to share a couple of examples that came across during my travels looking for stories that hopefully provide hope and also and then we talked about ways that we could fight back. The story i want to share is from louisiana and what happened was a bunch of citizens who were activists and social causes looking at usa today report further state and every year they printed a study the state of the state of louisiana is always at the bottom in terms of education system, healthcare, public services, and the people said why is that . Louisiana is a wealthy state was so many resources all the Oil Companies along the gulf. How can it be we dont have money and we are doing so poorly . They are looking at the state budget and found since 1836 there has been a Small Committee of five people appointed by the legislature and their biz so this was started at a time when they said we will give them a tax abatement for ten years and not have to pay any property taxes that was wellintentioned but not what happened so what happened is they came to louisiana got the tax abatement and then went back and said can we get it another ten years . And this Small Committee was rubberstamping property tax abatements whether from exxon mobil or tao in say we still dont want to pay property taxes and they would say okay. And as a result there was a lot of missed property taxes and it was obvious this was probably a big cause why louisiana is so poor in so many respects. So this group formed an Organization Called the other louisiana and got people involved in started to go to public hearings and how can this be . How do you keep giving them the abatement . We have to pay them why dont they . It was a long battle but they want and in 2019 the law was changed and now requires any company who once the abatement can no longer go to this committee to get the rubberstam rubberstamp, they have to present their case to School Districts and Police Departments and Fire Departments and other people who have an interest to get that paid and request that that they get the property tax abatement so it was something that nobody had ever heard about it. These guys are making millions and then to say yes we both played out were to come up with an explanation that makes sense as to why they dont have to. There are more examples like that in the book but that was probably the most exciting one. Briefly mentioning stadiums, i think all of us have heard of the new stadium in las vegas the most expensive ever built in us history, 2 billion stadium and the taxpayers of las vegas around the book for that. And they are providing all the roads, the team does not to pay any rent or property the taxpayers are giving that team a huge gift. Some people say that happens with every stadium thats how professional sports are but thats not the way they have to be because San Francisco has one. 3 billion stadium that hosted super bowl 50 and 2016 and that stadium was completely financed with private money so taxpayers did not have to pay a dime and they still got a beautiful stadium and i think that as long as people Pay Attention and taxpayers say wai wait. You have plenty of money but dont ask me for my so the most important thing that i thank you cant make a difference and then i use tax dollars. Thats all i have to say. You are muted. Thank you. I want to. I want to to become a part of the discussion with your facebook or youtube and if you are on twitter use the cato event we will asked them to relay their question the book in question is welfare for the rich higher tax dollars and up and millionaires pockets and what you can do as well as amazon and barnes noble it is on sale right now and amazon and then turn it over and then respond to what you heard and whats in the book. Thank you for writing the book i have got it right here a success and well written and easy to read and not written by and economist it is stories of people who suffer from corporate welfare for the rich and just counting some Success Stories i like the definition of welfare for the rich that we should talk about what should count and what shouldnt but there narrowly focused on the direct transfer like the farm payment and include the tax code and this is an interesting question for the free market libertarian people because frankly the First Tea Party it wasnt about the tax but the British Tea Company getting a break that everybody else had to pay. They talked about regulations which is a huge part that media misses and how the it was underway in those tariffs and business the Sugar Program which i always found it erroneous that just drives the prices for a few politically connected companies so first of all the book offers something important to everybody. If you are a libertarian and a friend who is in the middle of the road or you dont, they will understand more from this book that government involvement impressed the benefit of the wellconnected. And then its even more important. So to think of they are working towards so right now there is bipartisan agreement but for people who held beliefs and we can use that turned off but the most important thing for libertarians is educational and then to provide those examples they are compelling but another thing to talk about the terrorist is proportionally fallen people who are middle class and working class because we spend our money on a higher portion shoes because go to the drinking glass i will say i spend a ton of money but you get the idea the more your money is spent on consumer goods as opposed to a vacation in europe or Something Like that the war they fall on you but there is a more interesting example the farmer named grade shows up. He doesnt accept farm subsidies so now you think he plays his tax dollars, his earnings thats not it. The fact that other people who are renting farmland are getting subsidized so that means the ability to pay higher rent goes up so the owner of the land benefits so those are not accepting the subsidies to see those prices go up because of the subsidy he is not receiving thats a very good thing so remember retirement government benefit somebody there is a good chance it hurts somebody else. Another is the cost of complexity of lobbying lawyers. They had to make sure the government abnormalities it is like a blanket type now miss correct me on correct me if i miss quote this but they were get a higher tariff rate for a way to can you stick your arms in the blanket so the lawyers have to make a case that having sleeves does not undermine the definition. But the money spent on that no offense to lawyers but this does not add value in our economy. So talking about the president s taxes and the ability to move stuff around and hire a really good accountant so eight years ago there was an article on the front page General Electric paying approximately zero and Corporate Income tax and at one point they mention that is over 900 people so think about that General Electric now not having good years financially you think they are making their products better is instead spent to pay these tax lawyers but even worse then they call the executive at ge and say do you know whats better for your taxes . If you do this then your taxes will go down. They should be doing that if it provided value and was profitable but now a friend writing a bestselling book said invested in drupal oil and natural gas. Losing 10 percent of his money doing this but it was possible because of the inefficient use of his money reduce taxes highway with many loopholes and it creates the economic cost. With the free market advocates. And thats not the good thing in and of itself. And those pursuing profit are doing so and if you are pursuing profit in every single case he will be providing what people want. And then to provide Something Like ethanol or Health Insurance or what we are forced to buy and then not care about quality because any regulate your competitors out of business so in that context it is it morally just what you do is lobby for the special favors the social responsibility of the corporation to maximize if you read the article its important that we remember that its not good for General Electric to force people to buy worse labels is not morally acceptable is not good to lobby for the Sugar Program that keeps them from buying sugar and those are destructive ways to pursue. We can talk about the solutions so i word congratulate you on the book not because its good for the economy but have to have that free and open Playing Field that it actually produces. Thank you we appreciate you joining us it is a terrific book and particularly in this Political Climate we are in right now. So does anybody have an estimate how much corporate welfare and subsidies anybody they have a number they throw out . Those in the corporate welfare but what are your thoughts on what there is out there . I think its possible to answer the question with the research we just keep stumbling across more and more examples. And talk about the louisiana situation and then we are talking very big big numbers but to put up a corporate welfare countdown clock with the dollars but i dont thank you have a solid number
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.