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Tag(s): Americans; Bush Messes To Clean Up; Cartoons Editorial; Corporate Contributions; Corporate Corruption Crime; Corporate Eco-destruction; Corporate Media; Corporate Sponsored Congress; Corporate Welfare; Expose; (more...) Government; Politicians; Seniors; Sonoma; Sonoma County; Time; Washington D-C-; Welfare (less...)
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July 9, 2008 at 16:38:05

HOGS FEED AT CORPORATE WELFARE TROUGH AT SENIORS EXPENSE

by Allen L Roland

www.opednews.com

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Republican conservative senators continue to negate Senior entitlement programs such as Medicare and cater to Insurance companies while states, older people and Medicare patients needlessly suffer. It's time to take on Corporate Welfare which is shaking down the poor while the rich get richer: Allen L Roland

If seniors could get beyond their National Security fears and clearly see reality ~ they would realize that they have been ripped off for over eight years by a Bush administration who see both Medicare and Social Security as a damper on their version of a corporate welfare state ~ which is draining funds for needed services to the poor and elderly.

The Center for American Progress reports on the conservatives latest outrage.

Conservatives Filibuster Medicare Patients

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2008/07/pr20080702

On Thursday, Senate conservatives blocked a bill that would have averted a 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors. The bill, which would have canceled a reduction in Medicare fees and increased doctor pay by 1.1 percent, passed the House last week 355-59. But the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the bill by only one vote. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was the only senator to miss the vote, besides Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who is undergoing treatment for a brain tumor.

SENIORS SUFFER MOST: The recalcitrant position of the conservatives and the White House creates real victims. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, Senate conservatives "are playing a dangerous game of chicken. The only losers will be Medicare patients, old people." "A lot of physicians will limit the number of Medicare patients they will see" as a result of the pay cut, said Dr. Lee Schoeffler, a Tulsa, OK ophthalmologist. A poll by the American Medical Association found that 60 percent of physicians "said they would limit the number of new Medicare patients they would see if a cut took effect." Even as doctors sought to ward off the latest cuts, the CMS announced Monday the legislation would mean Medicare payments to doctors would undergo a further drop another 5.4 percent in 2009. It is not just Medicare patients and doctors who will feel the pinch. "Most private insurance companies will begin reducing their reimbursement rates to doctors because they use Medicare as a benchmark" in setting their rates. "It doesn't hit just Medicare," Schoeffler said. "It works its way down into every part of the community."

But let's deal with the deep real ongoing problem here ~ and that is Corporate Welfare which George W Bush has purposedly allowed to continue unabated while being completely ignored by the complicit mainstream media ~ until now.

"Corporate Welfare": A Media Issue at Last?

Norman Soloman

http://www.progress.org/welfare01.htm

" For many years, across the United States, huge quantities of tax breaks and subsidies have been going to corporations. Occasionally, the media spotlight falls on an example of how government policies stand Robin Hood on his head ~ shaking down the poor and middle class while handing over the proceeds to wealthy individuals and big businesses.

Sometimes called "corporate welfare," this pattern of legalized rip-offs has been widespread ~ yet little of the story seems to emerge in major news outlets. Overall, the coverage is sporadic at best. In mass media, the broader picture has been missing ~ until the last few weeks.

November brought a series of breakthroughs, thanks to two gifted reporters and a news weekly that allowed them to engage in rigorous journalism. All month, beginning with a cover story on "What Corporate Welfare Costs You," Time magazine featured extraordinary exposes by Donald Barlett and James Steele.

Corporate welfare, they write, is "a game in which governments large and small subsidize corporations large and small, usually at the expense of another state or town and almost always at the expense of individuals and other corporate taxpayers."

Barlett and Steele report that "the federal government alone shells out $125 billion a year in corporate welfare." Meanwhile, "a different kind of feeding frenzy is taking place" at the state and local level -- where "politicians stumble over one another in the rush to arrange special deals for select corporations."

In theory, the giveaways create jobs. In practice, the theory is hogwash: "Time's investigation has established that almost without exception, local and state politicians have doled out tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to businesses that are in fact eliminating rather than creating jobs."

Often, when localities roll out the gold carpet for firms, government coffers shrink -- and services for the public diminish. As Barlett and Steele document in excruciating detail, one of the common results is health-threatening pollution that goes unchallenged. The most vulnerable neighborhoods tend to be where low-income people live.

The big hogs at the tax-funded trough include popular brands -- Intel and Dow, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz, Exxon and Shell, UPS and Procter & Gamble, to name just a few. Some are the parent companies of media empires, such as Walt Disney (ABC), General Electric (NBC) and ~ as the Time series acknowledges -~ Time Warner.

"The king of corporate welfare may be Archer Daniels Midland," according to Time. "The global agricultural-commodities dealer has artfully preserved one of the more blatant welfare programs -- a subsidy for ethanol that has already cost taxpayers more than $5 billion in the 1990s. Some $3 billion of that has gone to ADM."

Year after year, Archer Daniels Midland has poured several million dollars into the nightly PBS "NewsHour" television show hosted by Jim Lehrer. ADM is also an underwriter of National Public Radio news. And the savvy firm buys a lot of image ads on commercial TV network programs that discuss political issues. Not surprisingly, ADM hasn't been subjected to much tough reporting on the national airwaves.

Government should not be using tax dollars to help the rich get richer. But government has no business refusing to help Americans get the nutrition, health care, housing and other basics that are everyone's human right.

Welcome as it is, the occasional blockbuster expose of corporate abuses ~ even in a media outlet as influential as Time magazine ~ won't accomplish very much. Without an "echo effect," these issues are likely to remain muted.

The need to speak up and take action is a burden that falls on people in every community. Large corporations have been ripping us off for decades !"

This obvious wrong must be immediately delt with and righted in a Obama administration.

Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/07/09.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Cartoon courtesy of Pat Oliphant / Washington Post

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http://www.allenroland.com

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on Conscious talk radio www.conscioustalk.net