[PEN-L:6670] CEOs DEMAND CORPORATE WELFARE (fwd)

[D Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>]

> Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 15:13:53 -1000
> From: Jay Hanson <jhanson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: Cybernews Publish listserv <CYBERNEWS-PUBLISH-L@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: CEOs DEMAND CORPORATE WELFARE (fwd)
>
> Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 10:16:35 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Janice Shields <jshields@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: CEOs Want Balanced Budget; Won't Give Up Corporate Welfare
>
>
>               CEOs DEMAND BALANCED BUDGET BUT WON'T GIVE UP
>                             CORPORATE WELFARE
>
>
>      CEOs of 91 companies signed a letter to President Clinton,
> Senate Majority Leader Dole, House Speaker Gingrich and all members
> of Congress last December, calling on the President and Congress to
> balance the budget.  Consumer advocate Ralph Nader responded by
> sending letters to all of the signatories of the CEOs' letter,
> asking them to identify federal subsidies and tax breaks that
> benefit their corporations and to select the subsidies and tax
> expenditures that the CEOs would agree to begin to forego
> immediately in order to help balance the budget.  More than five
> months later and after Ralph Nader's Corporate Welfare Project
> contacted a second time the signatories to the balanced budget
> letter, none of the 91 CEOs have identified even one federal
> subsidy or tax break that their companies would give up to help
> balance the budget.
>
>      "This is the ultimate form of corporate hypocrisy," said Ralph
> Nader.  "Wealthy CEOs demand a balanced budget, but refuse to take
> their snouts out of the federal corporate welfare trough," added
> Nader.
>
>      Ralph Nader pointed out in his letter to the CEOs that if
> Congress abolished only five subsidies* for corporations,  $5.12
> billion in federal spending would be saved in fiscal year 1996.  If
> only five tax breaks* for businesses were eliminated, $46.4 billion
> in additional federal revenue would be collected in 1996.  These
> ten subsidies and tax breaks will total $51.52 billion in 1996; in
> its annual report, Aid for Dependent Corporations (AFDC), the
> Corporate Welfare Project identified 153 examples of 1995 federal
> corporate welfare totalling $167 billion.
>
>      The Corporate Welfare Project has identified several examples
> of subsidies and tax breaks enjoyed by specific companies whose
> CEOs were signatories to the balanced budget letter.  For example,
> Eastman Kodak was able to reduce its 1995 U.S. taxes by $37 million
> due to export sales and manufacturing tax credits; Kodak's 1995
> profits were $1.252 billion.  Chevron had deferred payment of more
> than $4 billion in taxes as of the end of its 1995 fiscal year, by
> using accelerated depreciation; Chevron's 1995 profits were $930
> million.  Union Carbide received $200 million in Overseas Private
> Investment Corporation insurance in 1995 for its investment in
> Kuwait; Union Carbide's 1995 profits were $925 million.
> AlliedSignal was awarded an Advanced Technologies Program grant for
> $1.2 million in 1995; AlliedSignal's 1995 profits were $875
> million.  "CEOs of profitable corporations call for balancing the
> federal budget, but won't give up their federal subsidies and tax
> breaks," said Janice Shields, Coordinator of Ralph Nader's
> Corporate Welfare Project.  "Does this mean that these wealthy CEOs
> want the budget balanced on the backs of low and moderate income
> families?," she asked.
>
>      *The subsidies come from the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas
> Private Investment Corporation, the Export Enhancement Program, the
> Market Promotion Program and the Foreign Military Financing
> Program.  The tax breaks include accelerated depreciation, reduced
> rates on the first $10 million of corporate taxable income, the
> exception to the source rule for the sale of inventory property,
> tax credits for corporations with income in U.S. possessions and
> expensing rather than amortizing research and development costs.
>
>                                     ###
>
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> -----
> Janice Shields
> Center for Study of Responsive Law
> P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC  20036
> 202-387-8030                    |   Internet:   jshields@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>