I can’t stand our nanny state that coddles corporations and gives them welfare without requiring they do anything to help society in return. They’ve manipulated the government to redistribute money from people who work for a living, like me, to corporations that get handouts. It’s like socialism for corporations.

What made me think of it was a passage from Marion Nestle‘s Food Politics. Since interviewing her, I’ve been reading and rereading her books and blog.

Here’s a relevant passage:

“A more important reason for low food prices is that the government subsidizes food production in ways that are rarely evident. The most visible subsidies are price supports for sugar and milk, but taxpayers also support production quotas, market quotas, import restrictions, deficiency payments, lower tax rates, low-cost land leases, land management, water rights, and marketing and promotion programs for major food commodities. The total cost of agricultural subsidies rose rapidly at the end of the twentieth century from about $18 billion in 1996 to $28 billion in 2000. As we shall see in Part II, the large agricultural corporations that most benefit from federal subsidies spare no effort to persuade Congress and the administration to continue and increase this largesse.”

This passage is the tip of the iceberg on food. Among its many results is that I pay for unhealthy food that makes it cheaper for over 70% of the population to become overweight and obese. Then I have to pay for their hundreds of billions of dollars of costs, such as from diabetes, heart disease, and other treatments. Actually the costs in that link to the CDC listed costs for obesity. Including overweight may push the costs to trillions.

Why does the government give welfare and socialism to corporations beyond what it ever would to people?

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