How To Cut Federal Spending Without Eliminating Essential Services Part Three

Farm & Business Subsidies (aka, corporate welfare): Daring entrepreneurs invent new and useful products and services or develop novel marketing techniques or industrial processes in order to reap high profits. In the process, they furnish expanded job opportunities for prospective workers. That's the free market at work. Everybody wins. 

But Congress has long since provided special assistance to preferred businesses and industries. What we may call counterfeit capitalists may also offer products or services to the consuming public. But they prefer to forego the normal market risks by sending their lobbyists to plead for special political favors. If successful, it's a win for them. But it makes losers out of millions of taxpayers who are expected to subsidize their activities. 

Thus, according to the FY 2024 budget, the Department of Commerce’s mission is to create the conditions for economic growth and opportunity for all communities. "[It] makes prudent investments to position our workers and businesses for success in the 21st century. Specifically, the Budget makes investments that will drive U.S. innovation and global competitiveness, foster inclusive capitalism [???] and equitable economic growth, address the climate crisis, expand opportunity and discovery through data, and provide 21st-century\ service to deliver on its mission." The Budget proposes $12.3 billion in discretionary funding and $4 billion in mandatory funding . . . . "

But that's the mission of every firm that puts up an "open for business" banner. There is no earthly reason why taxpayers should have to fork over so much of their earnings so that government can hand it to favored businesses operating in dozens of preferred industries. End the government's failed effort to stimulate economic growth, cut a large chunk of the $16.3 billion out of the Commerce Department's budget, and give people a steep tax cut. That's really what businesses and consumers across America now need. 

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And consider, that corporate welfare is tantamount to crony capitalism (not laissez faire, free market capitalism). Well, crony capitalism is phony capitalism. Washington is merely the place counterfeit capitalists go to get special benefits at their neighbors' expense. And then there are the farmer conglomerates that also seek special allowances from Congress.

In 2024, The Department of Agriculture requested $30.1 billion in discretionary budget authority, a $3.8 billion or 14-percent increase from the 2023 enacted level. Its mission: "creating jobs and opportunity in rural communities; lowering energy costs for Americans; strengthening food supply chains and the nutrition safety net; supporting underserved farmers and producers; restoring America’s advantage in agriculture; tackling the climate crisis while mitigating its ongoing impacts; and advancing environmental justice."  

The Budget restores American innovation in agriculture by providing a total of more than $4 billion, a $299 million increase above the 2023 enacted level, for agricultural research, education, and outreach. This includes $370 million to increase capacity among historically underserved populations. The Budget provides $7 billion for climate-related funding, a $2 billion increase over the 2023 enacted level. These are all things the agricultural industry can do by itself, for itself.

Counterfeit capitalists happily evade normal market risks by appealing to Congress for a sure thing. But entitlement enthusiasts go there, as well. This takes us from the corrupt world of corporate welfare to the "compassionate" world of social welfare.  Would anyone be brazen enough to recommend steep cuts in this budget area? Why not? 

Let's take Social Security and Medicare off the table, for the moment. These are long-accepted programs that Americans have contributed to and rely on. That leaves a long list of entitlement programs that are of more recent vintage, including those that provide food, housing assistance, and medical care to needy and indigent individuals and families. The problem with these programs is that millions of recipients are able-bodied, working-age men and women who would rather the taxpayers take care of them than go through the trouble of taking care of themselves. 

The FY 2024 budget supports "a Strong Nutrition Safety Net." The Budget provides $7.1 billion for critical nutrition programs, including $6.3 billion to fully fund the 6.5 million individuals expected to participate in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP) for Women, Infants, and Children. While this program is deemed to be critical to the health of "at-risk" Americans, working-age men and non-pregnant women also receive this assistance. Why should any able-bodied, working-age taxpayer be compelled to support someone who may be struggling but only from his/her unwillingness to find a job? 

A relatively new Medicaid program is worth a mention. It's called FreedomCare (or Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) and its paying as much as $840 a week to any friend or family member who provides daily care for 70,000 seniors living in New York, Nevada, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Indiana, Georgia, Connecticut and Colorado. Suffice it to say the program will enable Medicaid recipients to "hire" a friend or family member to do what he/she, thankfully, can still do for him/herself.

Now, let's put Social Security back on the table. There is a far better alternative and the country ought to consider it before the so-called Trust Fund runs out of cash (in 2033) and leaves everybody wanting. The argument is too complex to consider here. But there is room for a brief hint.

If any responsible individual could invest what he/she now pays in payroll (and other) taxes for the course of their working lives, the miracle of compound interest would allow nearly every American to retire a millionaire. But, say the skeptics, what about the periodic plunges that have plagued the American economy from the start? During the "inevitable" financial panics, stocks plunge, banks fail and savers lose their life savings. What good is that?

Here's the answer. Every panic and depression across the nation's history was not caused by free-market, laissez faire activities. The so-called "boom-and-bust, business cycle," is the rotten result of the corporate welfare scheme hatched in Washington and several states. 

The tragic irony is that these corporate welfare policies, alone, created the "need" and demand for social welfare reforms from the Progressive Era, to the New Deal and beyond. But it will take a full-length book (now researched and written but, as yet, unpublished) to validate that audacious claim. 

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.