My new Cato policy analysis goes into great detail about how the federal government uses your tax money to subsidize businesses. In fiscal 2006, the “corporate welfare state” cost $92 billion, all of which funded programs that provide unique benefits to particular companies or industries.
One of these programs is the Rural Utilities Service (RUS). A relic of the New Deal, the goal of the program was to electrify the countryside. Now that reading by candlelight in the boonies is a thing of the long forgotten past, the RUS has morphed into a fountain of cash for rural electricity co-ops.
As a story on the front page of this morning’s Washington Post highlights, it’s always easier to create a program than to kill it:
The key to the longevity of the Agriculture Department’s programs for rural utilities has been the [electricity co-ops’] powerful political voice. More than 30,000 members gave an average of $41 last year to the co-op association for political contributions. Given their geographic scope, the co-ops can mobilize letter-writing campaigns across a vast number of states and congressional districts.
To learn more about the corporate welfare budget generally, tune in to my live interview on Bloomberg Radio’s “On the Economy” today at 6:30 pm Eastern. A podcast about the corporate welfare state will be featured on the Cato website on Tuesday.
