So you want the government to "Stop giving poor people free stuff?"

Recently found posted on FB:

Here's the transcript:

So you want the government to "Stop giving poor people free stuff?" Funny how you don't care about the $70 billion a year we spend on subsidizing Wall St. banks, the $38 billion in subsidies given to oil companies, the $2.1 trillion that Fortune 500 companies are stashing abroad to avoid paying U.S. taxes, and the $153 billion a year we spend to subsidize McDonald's & Walmart's low-wage earners?

There's been a lot of Occupy memes posted on FB lately, and they are invariably misleading, misinformed, or deliberately obfuscating. They are presented through the lens of socialism, a perspective that seems to make the Occupiers unable to accurately evaluate economics. 

Couple that with a tendency to misstate the position of their adversaries, and you have all the ingredients that constitute leftist thought in the U.S.. So let's look at the claims one by one and see where the Occupiers go astray.

1) So you want the government to "Stop giving poor people free stuff?" False premise. No one wants to stop giving poor people free stuff. No one has stated or implied such a thing. It falls to the defenders of this statement to supply direct quotes of any prominent politician or commentator who has said such a thing. 

Second, it's not "free." Government has no money of its own, it must source the money from someone else. Someone else worked for that money. Someone else earned it. Someone else sweated and labored. It is their money. And taking it from those who earned it and giving it to someone else does not make it free. 

Third, favoring government redistribution program is not the same thing as favoring help to the poor. Government programs are not compassionate, only people can be compassionate. I doubt the Occupiers have got out their own checkbooks and donated to a charity, cooked a meal for a hungry person, or repaired a poor person's house. You see, they expect government to do that, and their sole measure of compassion is the sheer number of dollars that government spends. There is no personal compassion involved.

2) "Funny how you don't care..." Non sequitur. The two concepts are not connected. What happens to the poor versus what happens to the rich are separate transactions not related to each other. Indeed, it's a sweeping generalization, something that cannot be known about a large group of people, but it certainly is a convenient way to impugn one's interlocutor. 

 3) "...about the $70 billion a year we spend on subsidizing Wall St. banks..." The only real documentation I could find for this claim is that big banks can borrow money at lower interest rates than some others can, plus the stimuli and bailouts went largely to corporations that were deemed "too big to fail." 

Regarding the bailouts, when the vote in the House was taken, "Democrats voted 140–95 in favor of the legislation, while Republicans voted 133–65 against it." Unfortunately for the Occupiers, it was their leftist friends that wanted the bailouts, it was people on their side who made sure their corporate cronies got paid off, it was they who supported huge sums of taxpayer money transferred to Wall St. banks.

Conservatives have opposed these kinds of arrangements for decades, but the Left really believes that "public/private" collaborations, rescues, and sweetheart deals are legitimate government activities.

4) "...the $38 billion in subsidies given to oil companies..." Once again I was unable to corroborate this "fact." I was able to locate the basis for the claim, however, and what it boils down to is that oil companies receive certain tax breaks, ostensibly to ensure the continuation of the supply of low cost petroleum to the marketplace. We need to note parenthetically that "clean energy" subsidies are rarely opposed by the Occupiers and the Left.

The economics of this is pretty easy, however. Corporate taxes are a defacto myth. Taxes are simply another cost of doing business. Those costs are part of the price of the product, thus the end user, you and I, pay all corporate taxes. So, those who support ending "corporate subsidies" are essentially in favor of the poor and middle class paying more taxes, indirectly through the things they buy.

5) "...the $2.1 trillion that Fortune 500 companies are stashing abroad to avoid paying U.S. taxes..." Hooray! I was finally able to document a source for this claim. The linked article supplies us with some interesting information. First, we must note that there is a reason companies move their assets overseas. Quite simply, why would they want to give up a large piece of their cash when they don't have to? Economically speaking, it makes perfect sense to (legally) lower your tax bill. 

You and I do this every year on our own tax returns. We take deductions and credits, we save our receipts, and we generally do everything we can to lower our tax bill. Yet somehow it's a problem for corporations to do the same? 

Interestingly, the response to this expatriated money is not to encourage businesses to keep their money patriated by lowering their taxes. From the linked article: "Instead, Obama earlier this year proposed applying a 14 percent mandatory tax on the stockpiled profits and a 19 percent minimum tax on foreign earnings going forward." So the administration wants to punish these corporations with higher taxes! The result will be that instead of companies stashing their money in the Caymans, those companies are going to leave the U.S. entirely. Yup, real smart. 

6) "...and the $153 billion a year we spend to subsidize McDonald's & Walmart's low-wage earners..." Amazingly, I was able to document another claim. The basic idea is that corporations don't pay their workers enough, so the government makes up the difference with welfare and food stamps. "Thus the subsidy."

What's left out of the equation is legion. For example, government economic policies, particularly deficit spending, regulation, and tax philosophy, create a heavy burden on the economy. Government's tentacles are insinuated into every facet of the economy. Every one of us are continually forced to jump through government hoops. 

As government takes up a larger and larger share of the economy, those at the bottom suffer the most. They bear the brunt of government disproportionate to their economic activity. Government, always the hero, then comes in and "rescues" the poor with subsidies and tax credits, and conveniently blames eeevil big business. 

The big gorilla in the room is government, which spends more in a year than the total value of the top 50 companies in the U.S.. 

In addition, its monetary policies cause inflation, which is an indirect tax on consumers. 

The cost of goods and services continually increase, but wages have been stagnant for decades. Yet for some reason Occupiers blame companies for not paying people enough, when it is government that is eroding buying power and causing inequality by its policies. 

Much more could be said about the follies of the Occupiers. Perhaps another time.