December 31, 2005

Government by Giveaway

By Michael Parenti

In December 2005, the reactionaries who are running the government and
ruining the country decided to cut about $42 billion from the human
services budget over the next few years. Most of the cuts will come out
of the hides of the very poorest among us. The victims include persons
afflicted with disabling diseases who already have trouble trying to
live on a monthly federal pittance.

But there is another side to this Scrooge story. There are others among
us who are treated most handsomely by Washington. I am referring, of
course, to Corporate America.

A central function of the corporate capitalist state is to maintain and
advance the capital accumulation process. This it does by (a) taxing
the many to subsidize the few; and (b) privatizing the public wealth,
specifically the land, airwaves, mineral deposits, and other natural
resources that are nominally the property of the American people.

In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration sought to undo what
conservatives in those days called the "creeping socialism" of the New
Deal. So they handed over to private corporations some $50 billion (or
$200 billion in today's dollars) worth of offshore oil reserves,
government owned synthetic rubber factories, public lands, public
utilities, and atomic installations.

During that time, the federal government also built a multibillion
dollar interstate highway system that provided the
infrastructure----and an enormous indirect subsidy---for the trucking
and automotive industries. The practice of using the public's money and
resources to subsidize private enterprise continues to this day. It is
variously estimated that every year, the federal government doles out
hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare, in the form of
tax exclusions, reduced tax assessments, generous depreciation
write-offs and tax credits, price supports, loan guarantees, payments
in kind, research and development grants, subsidized insurance rates,
marketing services, export subsidies, irrigation and reclamation
programs, and research and development grants.

The government leases or sells at a mere fraction of market value
billions of dollars worth of oil, coal, and mineral reserves. It fails
to collect hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties, interest, and
penalties. And it sometimes gives the companies the right to purchase
the land title for a nominal fee.

The government pays out huge sums in unnecessarily high interest rates
on the billions it has borrowed from private creditors (the national
debt). It permits billions in public funds to remain on deposit in
private banks without collecting interest.

It lends out billions at below-market interest rates. It tolerates
overcharging by firms with whom it does business, and provides long
term credits, and tariff protections to large companies. It pays out
billions to reimburse big corporate defense contractors for the costs
of their mergers.

The government gave away the entire broadcasting spectrum valued at $37
billion (in 1989 dollars)--instead of leasing or auctioning it
off-thereby giving the big networks nearly five times the broadcasting
space they previously controlled.

Every year, the federal government loses tens of millions of dollars
charging "ranchers" below cost grazing rates on over twenty million
acres of public lands. These "ranchers" include a number of
billionaires, big oil companies, and insurance conglomerates.

Over the past five decades, at least $100 billion in public subsidies
have gone to the nuclear industry and many billions worth of federally
funded research and development has passed straight into corporate
hands without the government collecting a cent in royalties.

The U.S. Forest Service has built almost 400,000 miles of access roads
through national forests---many times the size of the entire federal
interstate highway system. Used for the logging operations of timber
companies, these roads contribute to massive mud slides that
contaminate water supplies, ruin spawning streams, and kill people.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), spent over $1
billion in taxpayer money over the past decade to help companies move
U.S. jobs to cheaper labor markets abroad. AID provided low interest
loans, tax exemptions, travel and training funds, and advertising to
the corporate outsourcers. AID also furnished blacklists to help
companies weed out union sympathizers from their work forces in various
countries.

In any one year, many billions in subsidies go to agribusiness
producers of feed grain, wheat, cotton, rice, soy, dairy, wool,
tobacco, peanuts, and wine, with relatively little going to small
agrarian producers. Subsidies to big commercial farms encourage
wasteful water practices and increased toxic runoffs into rivers and
bays from pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that agribusiness
uses legal loopholes to circumvent subsidy limits, thereby collecting
more than $2 billion in unjustified payments each year.

The federal government subsidizes the railroad, shipping, and airline
industries, along with the exporters of iron, steel, textiles, tobacco,
paper, and other products. It doles out huge amounts in grants and tax
incentives to the big petroleum companies to encourage oil exploration.


In the 1970s, several major petroleum companies leased acreage in
Alaska for oil exploration, paying $900 million for public lands that
yielded $50 billion.

Numerous medications marketed by the pharmaceutical industry have been
paid for in whole or part by taxpayers---who sometimes then cannot
afford the high prices charged.

Whole new technologies are developed at public expense nuclear energy,
electronics, aeronautics, space communications, mineral exploration,
computer systems, the internet, biomedical genetics, and others only to
be handed over to industry for private gain.

Thus, AT&T managed to have the entire satellite communications system
put under its control in 1962 after U.S. taxpayers put up the initial
$20 billion to develop it. The costs are socialized; the profits are
privatized.

Under corporate capitalism the ordinary citizen pays twice for most
things: first, as a taxpayer who provides the subsidies and supports,
then as a consumer who buys the high priced commodities and services.
Overall, federal spending represents an enormous upward redistribution
of income.

As the Bible says (Matthew 13:12): "To them that have shall be given,
and from them that have not shall be taken even what little they have."
If this is the way we bring God back into public life, then let's hear
it for atheism.

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/conte.../31parenti.cfm

wrote in message
oups.com...
December 31, 2005

Government by Giveaway

By Michael Parenti
In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration sought to undo what
conservatives in those days called the "creeping socialism" of the New
snip
During that time, the federal government also built a multibillion
dollar interstate highway system that provided the
infrastructure----and an enormous indirect subsidy---for the trucking
and automotive industries.

Just this example tosses the whole argument. Better get the facts straight.
Ike built the interstate highway system after he saw the autobahn in Germany
during WW-11. When he was a mere junior officer, he had to take a convoy
across the US. 1920's I think, and took about 3 months to do it. So for
strategic purposes the interstate system was built, with the requirement
that every so many miles the highway had to be capable of being a landing
field for airplanes. Get your facts straight before launching your
anti-capitolism rants.

"Calif Bill" wrote ...


Just this example tosses the whole argument. Better get the facts
straight. Ike built the interstate highway system after he saw the
autobahn in Germany during WW-11. When he was a mere junior officer, he
had to take a convoy across the US. 1920's I think, and took about 3
months to do it. So for strategic purposes the interstate system was
built,

Adequate rebuttal unto this point at which you travelled far afield into the
realm of urban legend.....


with the requirement that every so many miles the highway had to be
capable of being a landing field for airplanes.

A great legend, much and well debunked over time, especially in
alt.urban.folklore and at snopes, a tale which sounds good but is not really
true, among other reasons because all them power poles and lines get in the
way and barrow ditches are just not right for a/c (nor or the roadway
underpinnings in all cases really stressed for the "big thumps" of landing
heavy a/c).

Get your facts straight before launching your anti-capitolism rants.

You were right to respond to the knee deep BS of the previous poster, but
stick to fact, not legend.....(and actually, the autobahn system probably
had less to do with the interstate highway system than did the political
alliance between the White House, Western and Southern Senators and Reps
along with urban Congressfolk to whom the idea of federal funds - mostly
from fuel taxes - for better highways was more than attractive. That
military cargo could move along them was a great publicity justification,
but about #10 on the actual priority list).

TMO

wrote in message
oups.com...
December 31, 2005

Government by Giveaway

By Michael Parenti

In December 2005, the reactionaries who are running the government and
ruining the country decided to cut about $42 billion from the human
services budget over the next few years. Most of the cuts will come out
of the hides of the very poorest among us. The victims include persons
afflicted with disabling diseases who already have trouble trying to
live on a monthly federal pittance.

But there is another side to this Scrooge story. There are others among
us who are treated most handsomely by Washington. I am referring, of
course, to Corporate America.

Which just happens to provide the jobs that most people need. . . .

A central function of the corporate capitalist state is to maintain and
advance the capital accumulation process. This it does by (a) taxing
the many to subsidize the few; and (b) privatizing the public wealth,
specifically the land, airwaves, mineral deposits, and other natural
resources that are nominally the property of the American people.

In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration sought to undo what
conservatives in those days called the "creeping socialism" of the New
Deal. So they handed over to private corporations some $50 billion (or
$200 billion in today's dollars) worth of offshore oil reserves,
government owned synthetic rubber factories, public lands, public
utilities, and atomic installations.

During that time, the federal government also built a multibillion
dollar interstate highway system that provided the
infrastructure----and an enormous indirect subsidy---for the trucking
and automotive industries.

And for the convenience of Joe Public.

The practice of using the public's money and
resources to subsidize private enterprise continues to this day. It is
variously estimated that every year, the federal government doles out
hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare, in the form of
tax exclusions, reduced tax assessments, generous depreciation
write-offs and tax credits, price supports, loan guarantees, payments
in kind, research and development grants, subsidized insurance rates,
marketing services, export subsidies, irrigation and reclamation
programs, and research and development grants.

The government leases or sells at a mere fraction of market value
billions of dollars worth of oil, coal, and mineral reserves. It fails
to collect hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties, interest, and
penalties. And it sometimes gives the companies the right to purchase
the land title for a nominal fee.

Which in turn results in more production, a strong economy, jobs for many,
etc.

The government pays out huge sums in unnecessarily high interest rates
on the billions it has borrowed from private creditors (the national
debt). It permits billions in public funds to remain on deposit in
private banks without collecting interest.

It lends out billions at below-market interest rates. It tolerates
overcharging by firms with whom it does business, and provides long
term credits, and tariff protections to large companies. It pays out
billions to reimburse big corporate defense contractors for the costs
of their mergers.

The government gave away the entire broadcasting spectrum valued at $37
billion (in 1989 dollars)--instead of leasing or auctioning it
off-thereby giving the big networks nearly five times the broadcasting
space they previously controlled.

Every year, the federal government loses tens of millions of dollars
charging "ranchers" below cost grazing rates on over twenty million
acres of public lands. These "ranchers" include a number of
billionaires, big oil companies, and insurance conglomerates.

Over the past five decades, at least $100 billion in public subsidies
have gone to the nuclear industry and many billions worth of federally
funded research and development has passed straight into corporate
hands without the government collecting a cent in royalties.

The U.S. Forest Service has built almost 400,000 miles of access roads
through national forests---many times the size of the entire federal
interstate highway system. Used for the logging operations of timber
companies, these roads contribute to massive mud slides that
contaminate water supplies, ruin spawning streams, and kill people.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), spent over $1
billion in taxpayer money over the past decade to help companies move
U.S. jobs to cheaper labor markets abroad. AID provided low interest
loans, tax exemptions, travel and training funds, and advertising to
the corporate outsourcers. AID also furnished blacklists to help
companies weed out union sympathizers from their work forces in various
countries.

In any one year, many billions in subsidies go to agribusiness
producers of feed grain, wheat, cotton, rice, soy, dairy, wool,
tobacco, peanuts, and wine, with relatively little going to small
agrarian producers. Subsidies to big commercial farms encourage
wasteful water practices and increased toxic runoffs into rivers and
bays from pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that agribusiness
uses legal loopholes to circumvent subsidy limits, thereby collecting
more than $2 billion in unjustified payments each year.

The federal government subsidizes the railroad, shipping, and airline
industries, along with the exporters of iron, steel, textiles, tobacco,
paper, and other products. It doles out huge amounts in grants and tax
incentives to the big petroleum companies to encourage oil exploration.


In the 1970s, several major petroleum companies leased acreage in
Alaska for oil exploration, paying $900 million for public lands that
yielded $50 billion.

Numerous medications marketed by the pharmaceutical industry have been
paid for in whole or part by taxpayers---who sometimes then cannot
afford the high prices charged.

Whole new technologies are developed at public expense nuclear energy,
electronics, aeronautics, space communications, mineral exploration,
computer systems, the internet, biomedical genetics, and others only to
be handed over to industry for private gain.

Again, and for the benefit of the great majority of the American people (and
the world).

Thus, AT&T managed to have the entire satellite communications system
put under its control in 1962 after U.S. taxpayers put up the initial
$20 billion to develop it. The costs are socialized; the profits are
privatized.

AT&T does not control the satellite communications system. Not to mention
the fact that AT&T was broken apart in 1974, as a result of an antitrust
case brought by the government.

Under corporate capitalism the ordinary citizen pays twice for most
things: first, as a taxpayer who provides the subsidies and supports,
then as a consumer who buys the high priced commodities and services.
Overall, federal spending represents an enormous upward redistribution
of income.

As the Bible says (Matthew 13:12): "To them that have shall be given,
and from them that have not shall be taken even what little they have."
If this is the way we bring God back into public life, then let's hear
it for atheism.

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/conte.../31parenti.cfm

This has no business in rec.travel.air. But Communism has already failed,
and the U.S. economy remains the ideal in the world (whether or not people
like the US government's policies, they tend to try to emulate U.S. cultural
trends.

"TOliver" wrote in message
...

"Calif Bill" wrote ...


Just this example tosses the whole argument. Better get the facts
straight. Ike built the interstate highway system after he saw the
autobahn in Germany during WW-11. When he was a mere junior officer, he
had to take a convoy across the US. 1920's I think, and took about 3
months to do it. So for strategic purposes the interstate system was
built,

Adequate rebuttal unto this point at which you travelled far afield into
the realm of urban legend.....


with the requirement that every so many miles the highway had to be
capable of being a landing field for airplanes.

A great legend, much and well debunked over time, especially in
alt.urban.folklore and at snopes, a tale which sounds good but is not
really true, among other reasons because all them power poles and lines
get in the way and barrow ditches are just not right for a/c (nor or the
roadway underpinnings in all cases really stressed for the "big thumps" of
landing heavy a/c).

Get your facts straight before launching your anti-capitolism rants.

You were right to respond to the knee deep BS of the previous poster, but
stick to fact, not legend.....(and actually, the autobahn system probably
had less to do with the interstate highway system than did the political
alliance between the White House, Western and Southern Senators and Reps
along with urban Congressfolk to whom the idea of federal funds - mostly
from fuel taxes - for better highways was more than attractive. That
military cargo could move along them was a great publicity justification,
but about #10 on the actual priority list).

TMO



The landing strips were part of the orginal spec. But put the landing
strips in the context of 1952. You did not have C-5's and F18's. Other
than F-86, it was mostly prop and C-130 cargo planes, with a lot of C47's.

with the requirement that every so many miles the highway had to be
capable of being a landing field for airplanes.

A great legend, much and well debunked over time, especially in
alt.urban.folklore and at snopes, a tale which sounds good but is not really
true, among other reasons because all them power poles and lines get in the
way and barrow ditches are just not right for a/c (nor or the roadway
underpinnings in all cases really stressed for the "big thumps" of landing
heavy a/c).

nor really? But a little bit? Or maybe amongst the thousands of miles
there ARE some?

Get your facts straight before launching your anti-capitolism rants.

How about arguing the other points?

Its too easy to pacify your bad conscious by finding a single weak
point

US-americans have been propagandises so much, they don't even
recognise it anymore. You are perfectly adapted to hold two opposing
concepts in your brains:

example:

socialism is bad for people

"Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system
of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial
civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as
legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield
public benefits, in the classic formulation. Now, it has long been
understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle
will destroy itself in time. It can only persist, with whatever
suffering and injustice that it entails, as long as it is possible to
pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited,
that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an
infinite garbage can. At this stage of history either one of two things
is possible. Either the general population will take control of its own
destiny and will concern itself with community interests, guided by
values of solidarity, sympathy and concern for others, or alternatively
there will be no destiny for anyone to control. As long as some
specialized class is in a position of authority, it is going to set
policy in the special interests that it serves. But the conditions of
survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the
interests of the community as a whole, and by now that means the global
community. The question is whether privileged elite should dominate
mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must
-- namely to impose necessary illusions, to manipulate and deceive the
stupid majority and remove them from the public arena. The question in
brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or
threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human
existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured;
they may well be essential to survival."

"Calif Bill" wrote in message
ink.net...

"TOliver" wrote in message
...

"Calif Bill" wrote ...


Just this example tosses the whole argument. Better get the facts
straight. Ike built the interstate highway system after he saw the
autobahn in Germany during WW-11. When he was a mere junior officer, he
had to take a convoy across the US. 1920's I think, and took about 3
months to do it. So for strategic purposes the interstate system was
built,

Adequate rebuttal unto this point at which you travelled far afield into
the realm of urban legend.....


with the requirement that every so many miles the highway had to be
capable of being a landing field for airplanes.

A great legend, much and well debunked over time, especially in
alt.urban.folklore and at snopes, a tale which sounds good but is not
really true, among other reasons because all them power poles and lines
get in the way and barrow ditches are just not right for a/c (nor or the
roadway underpinnings in all cases really stressed for the "big thumps"
of landing heavy a/c).

Get your facts straight before launching your anti-capitolism rants.

You were right to respond to the knee deep BS of the previous poster, but
stick to fact, not legend.....(and actually, the autobahn system probably
had less to do with the interstate highway system than did the political
alliance between the White House, Western and Southern Senators and Reps
along with urban Congressfolk to whom the idea of federal funds - mostly
from fuel taxes - for better highways was more than attractive. That
military cargo could move along them was a great publicity justification,
but about #10 on the actual priority list).



The landing strips were part of the orginal spec. But put the landing
strips in the context of 1952. You did not have C-5's and F18's. Other
than F-86, it was mostly prop and C-130 cargo planes, with a lot of C47's.

You do understand the concept "urban legend", vectored by apparently
authoritative sources and swelling in size every time some journalist picks
up the hoary tale? If you wish to continue the claim, you'll need to
provide a cite (other than some of the popular fiction which continues to
convey the concept) from a credible government or other source (construction
company or whatever) providing some verification. If someone in Congress
may have been impressed by the idea that they could hypothetically be so
used, no reference exists in either legislation or specifications developed
for the IHs.

As for aircraft landing weights, C130s didn't arrive until well after the
Interstates were well under construction, but their were any number of
operational aircraft of the period with either high landing weights or high
landing speeds or both.....

B-47s, B-36s, C-74s, C-124s, C-69s, B-45s, ....the list of fast and/or heavy
goes on. .....And if interstates were such good places for the military to
use for emergency fields, don't you think they might occasionally have
practiced the art? Never did, did they.

It's a great tale, now almost a part of our cultural heritage, showing up in
countless books and magazine articles, but simply untrue. Workable,
perhaps, in some parts of the West, with long straight-aways and no power
poles, etc., a look at most interstates reveals all too many curves and a
notable lack of long straight stretches, and the wingtip-clipping barriers
of all those side roads leaping over the highway. All those emergency
airfields left from WWII operating bases provided Uncle Sam with an adequate
supply of "Bingo"/divert runways.

TMO

Calif Bill bmckee=at-ix.netcom.com wrote:

The landing strips were part of the orginal spec. But put the landing
strips in the context of 1952. You did not have C-5's and F18's. Other
than F-86, it was mostly prop and C-130 cargo planes, with a lot of C47's.

I'll believe a C-47, but you don't want to see a C-130 landing on a
highway. Let alone a B-36. I have seen C-130s land on improvised strips
before and the strip was usually not the same afterward. Admittedly some
of this was due to SOME pilots who crab the nosewheel on landing.

I'm not sure that I believe the claim of the highway being designed as
an alternate landing facility, but it's certainly been used as one
many times since it was built.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."