I don't like welfare any more than anyone else.. but not that much is spent on real welfare (food stamps, etc). Corporate welfare hurts competition which kills jobs and makes people more dependent on government assistance. Try competing with a company that receives tax dollars, you can't.

Tax cuts are stupid. I put my fingers in my ears and scream, "LALALALA!" when people talk about them. I would prefer they raise taxes high enough to pay off our debts, stop inflating money, and stop borrowing money. Make people pay the bill up front and they will know what is going on. The money comes from somewhere and you have they have to stop spending it before they can stop taxing us directly OR indirectly.

* Through Sematech, a consortium of very large U.S. computer microchip producers, the Pentagon provides nearly $100 million a year of support to the industry. But of the more than 200 chipmakers in the United States, only the 14 largest, including Intel and National Semiconductor, receive federal support from Sematech. Originally designed to help U.S. firms compete against foreign competition, Sematech now subsidizes the largest producers to help fend off smaller domestic competition.

* An estimated 40 percent of the $1.4 billion sugar price support program benefits the largest 1 percent of sugar farms. The 33 largest sugar cane plantations each receive more than $1 million.

* Through the Rural Electrification Administration and the federal power marketing administrations, the federal government provides some $2 billion in subsidies each year to large and profitable electric utility cooperatives, such as ALLTEL, which had sales of $2.3 billion last year. Federally subsidized electricity holds down the costs of running ski resorts in Aspen, Colorado, five-star hotels in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and gambling casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada.

* Last year the Forest Service spent $140 million building roads in national forests, thus subsidizing the removal of timber from federal lands by multi-million-dollar timber companies. Over the past 20 years the Forest Service has built 340,000 miles of roads -- more than eight times the length of the interstate highway system -- primarily for the benefit of logging companies.

* The Department of Agriculture Market Promotion Program spends $110 million per year underwriting the cost of advertising American products abroad. In 1991 American taxpayers spent $2.9 million advertising Pillsbury muffins and pies, $10 million promoting Sunkist oranges, $465,000 advertising McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, $1.2 million boosting the international sales of American Legend mink coats, and $2.5 million extolling the virtues of Dole pineapples, nuts, and prunes.

* Last year a House of Representatives investigative team discovered that federal environmental cleanup and defense contractors had been milking federal taxpayers for millions of dollars in entertainment, recreation, and party expenses. Martin Marietta Corporation charged the Pentagon $263,000 for a Smokey Robinson concert, $20,000 for the purchase of golf balls, and $7,500 for a 1993 office Christmas party. Ecology and Environment, Inc., of Lancaster, New York, spent $243,000 of funds designated for environmental cleanup on "employee morale" and $37,000 on tennis lessons, bike races, golf tournaments, and other entertainment. Such activities give new meaning to the term "corporate welfare."