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Let's Hear it for (Corporate) Welfare
Reform
Printed in The Progressive, June '02
Like Barbara Ehrenreich, I have been thinking lately about welfare reform. I think it would be a good thing, and we should make it happen. Look at the companies that get welfare dollars from our tax money (disguised sometimes as tax breaks or expenditures, but in CT at least the state often writes a check to companies which paid no taxes whatsoever). These companies get subsidized further by being allowed to pay wages that fall well below the federal poverty level, which is well below the true income level required to actually pay for food, rent and clothing, and transportation to and from work (don't even think about child care and medical expenditures!) We the taxpayers pick up the tab, in the form of assistance for the working needy, and for prisons, critical medical care, remedial education, and the numerous other personal and social costs associated with poverty. Is WalMart so poorly managed that it cannot pay a living wage?
The answer is not really welfare reform. The answer is radical transformation of the entire system, starting with electing leaders from parties which are not beholden to corporate donations, to dismantling the charters which allow corporations more rights and power than individuals can claim, to rethinking power itself.
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