Letter: Corporate welfare never went away

Re: Bringing back corporate welfare? (Aug. 3 article by Veronique de Rugy)

When did socialized welfare for major corporations stop? Reported by a Yale site - $5.9 trillion tax incentives and subsidies per year for fossil fuel corporations, while raking in record profits - and we pay again at the pump, and for all utilities.

President G.W. Bush in 2008 signed the $700 billion bailout bill for corporate financial institutions. Wouldn't this disincentivize the need to appropriately run a profitable business?

The Bush economy shed more than 2.5 million jobs and 3.2 million private-sector jobs, mostly to China. Wasn't it obvious. at that time, that corporations were not going to invest billions of their own money to rebuild manufacturing in the US? If they are not patriotic enough to pay a modicum of taxes, why would they spend billions?

The author seems to have forgotten the ongoing welfare, including tax avoiding strategies, that are largely responsible for turning the multimillionaires into multibillionaires with no effort on their part. How much better off would the middle class be if we only had to pay 0-3% in taxes?

Republicans in Congress keep this kind of socialized welfare coming, despite the fact it is high-time for the corporations making extraordinary profits to get off the taxpayer dole. This is private profit for public debt.

It is no sin to have the multimillionaires, billionaires and corporations to do their patriotic duty and pay their fair share in taxes.

Sara A. Anderson

Naperville