Corporate welfare and California's budget deficit

LA Times

I believe we can all agree on the root cause of the state's $20-billion budget gap.

It's welfare: all those millions of taxpayer dollars going to recipients who line up for their government handouts instead of competing in the marketplace on a level playing field like the rest of us, who don't pay their fair share of taxes and who get protected by a politically powerful lobby.

Yes, I'm talking about the business community.

For all the hand-wringing by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger about how there's almost nothing left to cut in the state budget except services to children, the aged and the destitute, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent every year on handouts to business. That's despite the lack of evidence that some of these programs keep employers in the state, lure employers from out of state or are cost-effective in any general way.

The governor is asking the Legislature to take such draconian steps as eliminating CalWORKS, the state's principal family welfare program (serving 1.1 million children), and downsizing child care and mental health programs.

Meanwhile, corporate welfare programs such as tax breaks for some of our largest companies and "incentives" for our largest industries are to survive. To his credit, Schwarzenegger has proposed delaying some new corporate tax breaks.

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