Visible Hand(outs)

SIX years ago, there seemed to be only one point of common ground in Washington. The newly elected Republican Congress was at odds with a Democratic White House on everything from school lunches to Medicare. Newt Gingrich tried to associate the Democrats with Susan Smith, who drowned her children; President Clinton tried to associate the Republicans with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. But on one issue, everybody professed agreement: Corporate welfare had to go. Clinton and Gingrich, Ralph Nader and Dick Armey, John Kasich and Robert Reich, the Heritage Foundation and Friends of the Earth all agreed that the federal government should stop giving subsidies to business. Colin Powell, too, blasted corporate welfare.

Clinton, Gingrich, Kasich, and Reich are all out of power now. But corporate welfare is still here. A forthcoming paper by Stephen Slivinski of the Cato Institute lists $87 billion of such subsidies in this year’s budget. And corporate-welfare spending is growing. It’s up 30 percent since 1997. Stephen Moore, a former Cato analyst now running the Club for Growth, concludes, “We fought a war against corporate welfare. Corporate welfare won.”

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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SIX years ago, there seemed to be only one point of common ground in Washington. The newly elected Republican Congress was at odds with a Democratic White House on everything from school lunches to Medicare. Newt Gingrich tried to associate the Democrats with Susan Smith, who drowned her children; President Clinton tried to associate the Republicans with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. But on one issue, everybody professed agreement: Corporate welfare had to go. Clinton and Gingrich, Ralph Nader and Dick Armey, John Kasich and Robert Reich, the Heritage Foundation and Friends of the Earth all agreed that the federal government should stop giving subsidies to business. Colin Powell, too, blasted corporate welfare.

Clinton, Gingrich, Kasich, and Reich are all out of power now. But corporate welfare is still here. A forthcoming paper by Stephen Slivinski of the Cato Institute lists $87 billion of such subsidies in this year’s budget. And corporate-welfare spending is growing. It’s up 30 percent since 1997. Stephen Moore, a former Cato analyst now running the Club for Growth, concludes, “We fought a war against corporate welfare. Corporate welfare won.”