'Corporate welfare' campaigns in North America

New Political Economy

Volumn 2, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 117-126

  Thomas, Kenneth P ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI ST LOUIS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0038287588     PISSN: 13563467     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13563469708406289     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Michael Webb, 'Taxing transnational capital: transfer prices in US policy and the OECD', paper presented to the Workshop on Capital Mobility, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, March 1996, p. 8.
2. Personal communication from Michael Webb, 30 May 1996.
3. Other groups use different names, because this term might imply that welfare given to individuals is a bad thing. Because of its widespread use, however, I will keep the term, without quotation marks, in this article.
4. R.J. Barry Jones, Globalisation and Interdependence in the International Political Economy: Rhetoric and Reality (Pinter, 1995), p. 3.
5. Charles Lindblom, Politics and Markets (Basic Books, 1977); Adam Przeworski & Michael Wallerstein, 'Structural Dependence of the State on Capital', American Political Science Review, Vol. 82 (March 1988).
6. Charles Lindblom, Politics and Markets (Basic Books, 1977); Adam Przeworski & Michael Wallerstein, 'Structural Dependence of the State on Capital', American Political Science Review, Vol. 82 (March 1988).
7. Note, however, that tax expenditures are often treated as 'off-budget', particularly in the USA. This article follows the practice of the European Union and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which acknowledge the real budgetary impact of tax expenditures.
8. Sven Steinmo, Taxation and Democracy (Yale University Press, 1993).
9. Note also that McKenzie and Lee have shown that tax rates are lower at the state level than at the federal level precisely because of capital mobility. See Richard McKenzie & Dwight Lee, Quicksilver Capital (Free Press, 1991).
10. Webb, 'Taxing transnational capital', p. 8.
11. Steinmo, Taxation and Democracy, p.40.
12. Commission of the European Communities, 'Fair Competition in the Internal Market: Community State Aid Policy', European Economy, No. 48 (September 1991).
13. Telephone interview, Gawain Kripke, Friends of the Earth, 21 May 1996.
14. Ian Robinson, North American Trade As If Democracy Mattered (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 1993), pp. 34-35.
15. AFSCME is an especially good example of this; see their publication, Marcia Howard, A Corporate Welfare Reform Agenda (American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Public Policy Department, 1994).
16. Ontario Coalition for Social Justice and Ontario Federation of Labour, Unfair Shares: Corporations and Taxation in Canada (Ontario Coalition, 1996).
17. Commission of the European Communities, First Survey on State Aid (European Commission, 1989), p. 3.
18. Telephone interview, 21 May 1996. In the US context, 'taxpayer' and 'free market' groups essentially favour balanced budgets and oppose government spending. Their political discourse tends toward the 'efficiency' critique of subsidies, as noted previously.
19. Personal interview with Courtney Cuff, Friends of the Earth, 7 June 1996.
20. Friends of the Earth, Green Scissors '96, electronic version at http://www.foe.org/FOE.scissors96.
21. Janice Shields, 'Ending (Corporate) Welfare As We Know It', electronic version at http://www.emf.net/∼cr/govreform/corpwelf-012596, p. 5.
22. Ibid., p. 1.
23. Commission of the European Communities, Fourth Survey on State Aid (European Commission, 1995), p. 41. Note that these figures are not entirely comparable. On the one hand, the US figures do not include sub-federal amounts, while the EU data do. On the other hand, the US numbers may fall relative to the EU statistics because: 1) Shields counts accelerated tax depreciation, which is considered a 'general measure' in the EU and therefore not counted; 2) Shields includes over US$50 billion in non-taxed pollution as a subsidy, which again is not counted in EU statistics; and 3) the EU data does not yet include the cost of subsidies in the airline industry, which have been substantial in the last few years.
24. Stephen Moore & Dean Stansel, Ending Corporate Welfare As We Know It, electronic edition at http://www.cato.org/main/pa225.html, p. 13.
25. Robert Shapiro, Cut-and-Invest: A Budget Strategy for the New Economy (Progressive Policy Institute, 1995).
26. Shields, 'Ending (Corporate) Welfare As We Know It', pp. 6-7.
27. Moore & Stansel, Ending Corporate Welfare As We Know It, p. 8.
28. Citizens for Tax Justice, The Hidden Entitlements (Citizens for Tax Justice, 1996), p. 6.
29. Telephone interview, Jim Turk, Canadian Union of Public Employees, 5 September 1996.
30. Telephone interview, Judy Randall, Canada's New Democrats, 11 September 1996.
31. Robert G. Lynch, Do State & Local Tax Incentives Work? (Economic Policy Institute, 1996), p. 3.
32. Personal interview, Iris Lav, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 7 June 1996.
33. Telephone interview, Dan Mills, 20 May 1996.
34. Louisiana Coalition for Tax Justice (LCTJ), 'IPTEP: industry's pet that's eroding parishes', Louisiana Parish Government, September 1995, pp. 19-22.
35. Ibid.
36. Tom Guarisco, 'Louisiana lures jobs with tax breaks', Sunday Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), 24 March 1996, p. J1.
37. Interestingly, though it is common practice in Europe to include such 'clawback' clauses in investment subsidy agreements, as of May 1995 only nine US states and four cities had adopted such practices. See Greg LeRoy, 'No more candy store: states move to end corporate welfare', Dollars and Sense, May/June 1995.
38. Telephone interview, Alexa Bradley, 20 May 1996.
39. Greg LeRoy, 'State subsidies for real jobs', St Louis Post-Dispatch, 2 December 1994, p. 15D.
40. Telephone interview, Jen Kern, ACORN, 28 May 1996.
41. D.J. Wilson, 'Trade deficit', Riverfront Times (St Louis), 7-13 June 1995, pp. 16-17.
42. Telephone interview, Jen Kern, ACORN, 28 May 1996.
43. Philip G. Cerny, 'The Dynamics of Financial Globalization: Technology, Market Structure, and Policy Response', Policy Sciences, Vol.27, No.4 (1994), p.339.