1 - I started with "transfer payments" not subsidies, somehow that got changed to subsidies.
"Much of the "pork" does, and great deal of things like farm supports, but the majority of government transfer payments go to the middle class."
Message 22311852
No actually I guess it started off as "wealth redistribution programs", not my term, I was quoting someone else, but I didn't object to the term.
"For if you look at the federal budget over time and how we've "voted" to spend our money, you'll note that wealth redistribution programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare and so forth have taken a larger and larger percentage of the budget."
Message 22202146
But corporate subsidies are not just direct outlays, they are also tax credits
I don't think that they are properly called subsidies. Still the effect is the same and I generally oppose targeted tax cuts/benefits.
How tightly targeted would they have to be for you to consider them a subsidy? Business taxes interact with businesses and the economy in complex ways. Being able to deduct expenses or ending the double taxing of dividends, or low capital gains rates don't strike me as subsidies, or as transfer payments, or as "wealth redistribution programs".
OTOH a tax break for oil exploration or for installing solar power, or for hybrid cars ect., does at least have the same effect as a subsidy.
On Social Security and Medicare, it's not a subsidy since they both have dedicated taxes,
They are definitely transfer payments.
Also dedicated taxes don't cause them not to be subsidies. The people receiving the money now receive more than they put in.
and at least with Social Security it's running a surplus.
Because non-recipients are being taxed. The program provides a subsidy for the recipients at the expense of those who are taxed to pay for it, similar to any transfer program. Dedicated or non-dedicated tax doesn't matter. X is taxed to pay for benefits for Y. How the tax is structured isn't really relevant to this point. |
