Ralph Nader Urges Tax Revolt In U.S. vs Corporate Coddlers

Longtime consumer advocate and budget critic Ralph Nader has called for "an unusual but long overdue revolt by the 150 million tax-withheld taxpayers."

Photo Insert: Ralph Nader is known as a staunch champion of consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes.

"I’m not speaking of rates of taxation that the rich and corporations largely avoid because of the gigantic tax escapes, which they grease through Congress. Today, I’m hoping to get your dander up by showing how corporatist politicians make you pay for big corporations to come to their corporate welfare-friendly state and make profits,” he stated.

On June 14, 2022, in CounterPunch magazine, Nader argued that taxpayers have been forced to subsidize companies in order for them to profit, and they receive nothing in return, referring to them as "silent partners pouring money indirectly into big-name corporations. They call these subsidies 'incentives,' but they are really coerced entitlements."

Aside from loan guarantees, there are numerous other forms of corporate welfare available at the federal, state, and local levels.

There are property tax breaks and direct cash subsidies, which were extended to the grossly mismanaged General Motors after it declared bankruptcy in order to get rid of its creditors and wrongful injury lawsuits.

There are federal taxpayer-funded research and development (R&D) programs, such as new government medicine research given free to Big Pharma to sell without price restrictions, and pioneering R&D breakthrough research for the computer, aerospace, biotech, nanotech, and agribusiness industries, to name a few.

Keep in mind that these handouts and bailouts almost never come with any sort of payback conditions. In rare cases, the federal government takes stock in the companies they rescue. This partial reciprocity took the form of stock from the 2008 GM and Chrysler bailouts.

When the Treasury Department eventually sold this stock, the proceeds were insufficient to cover the bailout.

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