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Ralph Nader on Corporations
2004 Reform nominee; 2000 Green Candidate for President
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Citizens' agenda for cracking down on corporate crime
This is a citizens' agenda for cracking down on corporate crime. - Establish a public online corporate crime database at the Dept. of Justice, and produce an annual corporate crime report
- Increase Corporate Crime Prosecution Budgets of the SEC,
which have been chronically under funded.
- Ban Corporate Criminals from Government Contracts - including corporate contracts in Iraq.
- Punish corporate tax escapees by closing the offshore reincorporation loophole and banning government contracts
and subsidies for companies that relocate their headquarters to an offshore tax haven.
- Restore the Rights of Defrauded Investors in seeking restitution
- Require shareholder authorization of top executive compensation at annual shareholder meetings.
- Enact corporate sunshine laws that force corporations to provide better information about their records on the environment, human rights, worker safety, and taxes, as well as their criminal and civil litigation records.
Source: In the Public Interest, Ralph Nader's weekly column
Oct 15, 2004
No eminent domain gifts to private enterprises
In 1980, Detroit was desperate for economic revitalization. General Motors offered to build a new complex if a suitable site could be found and given to GM. Detroit agreed that the best site was Poletown, a neighborhood consisting of second-generation
Polish-Americans and African-Americans, [which was given to GM by eminent domain]. [In a reversal this week], the Michigan Supreme Court rejected the suggestion that "a vague economic benefit stemming from a private profit-maximizing enterprise is a
'public use.'" Rather, land may be seized and transferred to a private party only if "the property remains subject to public oversight after transfer to a private entity."
This decision makes good sense as a matter of constitutional law & fundamental
fairness. People's homes can no longer be seized to achieve speculative benefits or to reward usually large corporate welfare kings. Courts nationwide should follow Michigan's lead and reestablish their rightful role in our constitutional system.
Source: "In the Public Interest" newspaper column
Aug 6, 2004
Legislative "tort deform" for consumers, not corporations
Another tort deform bill has failed in the Senate this week. American consumers should be thankful that the "Class Action Fairness Act" was mired in election year posturing by both parties. Some, mainly Republicans & corporations, would have you believe
that this is a "victory for trial lawyers." It is not. Sadly, this is not even that much of a victory for the aggrieved consumers who, as a result of the failed legislation, will retain access to their state judges and courts. The reason we are
seeing tort deformers push the myriad pieces of legislation that would immunize doctors from malpractice responsibility; that would protect oil companies from cleaning up polluting components of gasoline from our drinking water sources; or that would
make more onerous the ability of class actions to succeed against wealthy cigarette manufacturers, asbestos manufacturers and other corporations, is because they need only establish a few federal legislative precedents to open the tort deform floodgates.
Source: "In the Public Interest" newspaper column
Jul 10, 2004
Economic powers control our lives and our elections
Our country and its principles are abandoned by the very economic powers that control our destiny. Autocratic global corporations are deep into strategic planning. They openly and confidently strive to control our jobs; our environment; our political
and educational institutions; our food, drugs, and other consumptions; our savings; our childhoods; our culture; even our genetic futures. Toward these ends, they incessantly move to control our elections and our governmental institutions.
Source: The Good Fight, by Ralph Nader, p. 3
Jul 6, 2004
Capitalism can lead to fascism
[Quoting Franklin Delano Roosevelt]: "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself.
That in its essence is fascism: ownership of the government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power."
Source: The Good Fight, by Ralph Nader, p. 4
Jul 6, 2004
Corporations should not legally be counted as individuals
Whether we think in terms of justice under law or equal protection of the laws, it is untenable that artificial entities called corporations are given most of the constitutional rights of real humans while aggregating powers, privileges, and
immunities that individuals, no matter how wealthy, could never come close to attaining The primacy of civic values, rooted in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, must become our common objective for the common good
Source: The Good Fight, by Ralph Nader, p. 8
Jul 6, 2004
Giant corporations roam the Earth making people into serfs
Giant corporations roam the Earth, pitting societies against one another in search of the lowest costs from serf labor and other exactions from authoritarian regimes while pulling down standards of living in more democratic countries.
This downward drift is accelerated by transnational, autocratic systems of commercial governance known as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)
Source: The Good Fight, by Ralph Nader, p. 10
Jul 6, 2004
Net worth is $3.8 million; owns corporate stocks
In June 2000, Nader released a document laying out his personal finances. Due to privacy concerns-his old bugaboo-Nader refused to make his tax returns public, a step taken by most candidates. As a compromise, the Federal Election Commission accepted a
financial-disclosure document prepared by Nader himself. Nader's net worth was $3.8 million as of June 2000. He owned $1.2 million in Cisco Systems stock and more than $100,000 worth of shares in Fidelity's Magellan Fund, which has stakes in defense
contractors and business interests in South American rain forests. This, from a man who once urged GM's shareholders to revolt in an effort to force the company to be more socially responsible. Then again, Nader estimated during his presidential run that
he had made $14 million since 1967. He gave the bulk of the money away, financing his own causes and numerous others. As always, Nader is full of contradictions inside of contradictions, like Chinese boxes.
Source: Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon, by Justin Martin, p. 241-242
Oct 1, 2002
Consumerism is about corporations vs. citizens
Nader's very first fight, and perhaps his most famous, was with General Motors. At the time, people pegged him for an auto safety crusader, exclusively. But Nader worked hard to wriggle out of that pigeonhole. He went on to address a vast litany of
issues: unsanitary food preparation, flammable clothing, avaricious sports franchises, the limits of standardized testing. If you get bumped from a plane and the airline provides you a voucher for another flight, thank Nader. When you get an X-ray
and the technician covers you with a lead apron-again Nader deserves thanks.
The nest result of all Nader's frenetic activity was a full-blown movement, consumerism. The name is a bit misleading: consumerism is not just about the price of a cup
of sugar, at least not at its core. It is more of a political and economic theory, born out of Nader's distinct observations about the ongoing struggle between corporations and individual citizens, producers and consumers.
Source: Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon, by J. Martin, p. xiii-xiv
Sep 1, 2002
Shift power from corporations to consumers
What does Nader stand for? His raison d’etre for his candidacy: shifting power from “giant corporations, which have a grip over our government, environment, workplace, and marketplace” to “workers, consumers, taxpayers, and the voters of America.”
Source: Scot Lehigh, Boston Globe, page D1
Oct 8, 2000
Ralph Nader on Auto Safety
Auto safety devices are simple & cheap; but take years
When I started on motor vehicle safety issues back in the 1950s, what impressed me most was the simple nature of safety devices that were not in cars. For example, the padded dash panel that was invented by the makers of the Roman chariots in ancient
Rome. The collapsible steering column was patented before WWI. Seat belts were available to pilots in WWI. When I started criticizing the auto companies for not putting these simple, lifesaving features in cars, that was considered a radical move
by the auto companies and by quite a few commentators as well. When studies showed that in frontal collisions, if you hit your head against the rearview mirror and it did not break away, it could be a fatal injury. It took us years to
get the auto company executives to let their engineers do what they knew how to do and to put breakaway rearview mirrors in cars that we have today. All of these safety devices cost a pittance even on the first round of installation.
Source: Remarks to the Detroit Economic Club
Oct 10, 2000
Safety regulation works; but Auto Safety Agency sold out
The enormous success in the first few years of the Auto Safety Agency’s administration [is] still to our benefit today. The death toll per 100 million vehicle miles in 1966 was 5.6 fatalities for every 100 million vehicle miles driven. Last year
it was 1.6. So regulation does work, and a coordinated national effort to have everybody involved, address the problem, can diminish the problem. What has happened now is that the Auto Safety Agency has become a consulting firm for the auto industry.
The process started under Ronald Reagan and George Bush and continued unabated under the Clinton-Gore administration. With the exception of the airbag standard, there has been very little advance in automotive safety and fuel-efficiency technology in
people’s motor vehicles in the last 20 years. The last statutory fuel-efficiency standard was established in 1975, and the goal was by 1985, a motor vehicle average fuel efficiency would be 27.5 miles per gallon
Source: Remarks to the Detroit Economic Club
Oct 10, 2000
More regulation for auto safety, with criminal penalties
We need, in this country, new motor vehicle statutory authorities, with the following amendments enacted by Congress:- To put criminal penalties for knowing and willful violation of motor vehicle standards or knowing or willful refusal to recall
known defective cars that are impairing human life.
- To increase the [maximum] civil penalties from $925,000 to $15 million.
- To require the testing before certifying for compliance with safety standards.
- To extend the statute of limitations.
Right now if you have a car that is over eight years old, and the company discovers a serious defect, they don’t have to recall the vehicle. After eight years, they are in the clear.
- Now, [for] all of these and other knowing and willful criminal behavior, coverups, there is no criminal penalty. But if you are ever in Colorado or Wyoming and Idaho, and you get caught harassing a wild ass, you can go to jail for one year.
Source: Remarks to the Detroit Economic Club
Oct 10, 2000
Cancel R&D giveaways to auto industry; let them do it
The Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) is a public/private partnership between seven federal agencies and the big three automakers. The program represents an effort to coordinate the transfer of property rights for federally funded
research and development to the automotive industry. It is hard to imagine an industry less in need of government support than the highly capitalized auto industry, which is reporting record profits year after year. The government is supporting
research that the industry would or should do on its own in response to market demands, or could easily be required to do in order to meet tougher environmental standards.
The PNGV is not the only example of a federal research program that should be
eliminated. Research and development programs in areas like nuclear power and fossil fuels (among them the clean coal technology program) invest funds in undesirable non-renewable technologies. Such programs are not defensible.
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p. 63 & 66
Oct 9, 2000
Gore has given auto industry and other polluters a free ride
Q: Why do you speak so harshly about Al Gore?A: Gore said he was going to take on the auto industry. He gave the auto industry eight years of free ride on fuel efficiency standards, which have actually gone down; they’re at their lowest level since
1980-one reason for this oil price increase. He’s been weak on pesticides; given biotech industry a free ride; supported GATT and NAFTA, which are anti-environmental. He’s had eight years to convince us-we can’t believe him on that.
Source: Nader-Buchanan debate on ‘Meet the Press’
Oct 1, 2000
Motor vehicles are the greatest environmental hazard
Year after year, through its traumatic and polluting impact, the motor vehicle performs as the greatest environmental hazard in this country. The inceptions and consequences of this hazard do not conform neatly to municipal, county, and State boundaries.
In terms of unused capacity, fuel consumption per passenger, injuries, pollution, and total time displacement of drivers and passengers, automotive travel is probably the most wasteful and inefficient mode of travel by industrial man.
Source: VoteNader.com, “Auto Safety”
Feb 21, 2000
DOT: Focus on safety and mass transit
Q: If you were president, how would you run the Department of Transportation differently?A: I would make its mission safety, No. 1 -- whether it’s aviation, highway safety, motor vehicle safety. It isn’t No. 1 now. It’s basically a department
that’s a consulting firm to the motor vehicle industry and all its component parts -- trucking industry, automobile manufacturers, the highway lobby, etc. It’s not enforcing the law. I would enforce the law.
I would dramatically expand
investment in modern public transit. Instead of spending billions keeping our boys in Europe and East Asia to defend against nonexistent enemies on behalf of prosperous countries, I’d put that money into job production
for public transit and other public works, like schools, clinics, sewage systems and drinking water systems.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday Interview, p. 3/Z1
Oct 13, 1996
Automakers avoid replacing internal combustion engines
Q: On the issue of pollution emissions tests and controls, you’ve commented, The more you try to control pollution at the end point, the more expensive it gets and the more pissed off people get with administrators and having to go and get their car
inspected and get a sticker. So why isn’t it controlled at the point of production? A: Because at the point of production the company has to change the product, whereas at the point of emission it’s more at the [consumer] end. It’s more, “You haven’t
kept it up. You haven’t maintained it,“ etc. But also, if you control it at the emission point you don’t have to raise the question of displacing the internal combustion engine with a new propulsion system. You don’t have to answer the question why
the auto companies have been promising electric cars for all these years. I saw it at the 1939 World’s Fair at the GM exhibit. And now the head of the Automobile Manufacturer’s Association is quoted in the press as saying it’s still ten years off.
Source: Alternative Radio, interview by David Barsamian
Dec 8, 1995
Ralph Nader on Consumer Rights
Help for ordinary people should replace corporate welfare
Ralph Nader railed against big business from the heart of corporate America yesterday. Nader criticized New York City for offering multimillion-dollar tax breaks and other incentives to persuade the New York Stock Exchange to stay in Manhattan. “Here is
this bastion of global capitalism on welfare. It will take hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in order to build them a new building. At the same time, hundreds of neighborhoods are suffering from inadequate funding of their vital needs.”
Source: Jayson Blair, NY Times
Sep 1, 2000
Address corporate crimes piecemeal AND by revoking charters
Q: What are your views on Richard Grossman of the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy? He criticizes the piecemeal, one-by-one approach of addressing corporate crimes and advocates revoking their charters to do business whenever they harm the
common good.
A: I agree with both. I think you’ve got to do the retail law enforcement, which of course not only helps people immediately who are being harmed or cheated by these criminal violations or fraudulent behavior, but it informs people.
Every time there’s a prosecution, every time there’s law enforcement, it informs people of the misdeeds of these corporations. On the other hand, you’ve got to go to the basic charter that state governments and in some respects the federal government
provides to create these corporations and the conditioning of proper corporate behavior historically by these charters when they were given by legislatures in various states in the early part of the nineteenth century has been forgotten.
Source: Alternative Radio interview with David Barsamian
Feb 23, 2000
Stop giving corporations the same rights as people
Q:Are you advocating reform, tinkering with the system, or would you support a fundamental overhaul?A:When you have fundamental problems you’ve got to have fundamental overhauls. Right now corporations are treated as persons, just like flesh-and-blood
individuals. A corporation, an artificial legal entity, [is treated] as a person having all the rights under our Constitution. It’s absurd. You can’t have equality under the law with General Motors and John and Jane Doe having the same rights, when
Ralph Nader railed against big business from the heart of corporate America yesterday. Nader criticized New York City for offering multimillion-dollar tax breaks and other incentives to persuade the New York Stock Exchange to stay in Manhattan. “Here is
this bastion of global capitalism on welfare. It will take hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in order to build them a new building. At the same time, hundreds of neighborhoods are suffering from inadequate funding of their vital needs.”
Source: Jayson Blair, NY Times
Dec 9, 1995
Ralph Nader on Corporate Welfare
Scrutinize even “good” corporate welfare which helps public
If a program involves the government giving more to private companies than it gets back, then it should be considered corporate welfare. This definition suggests analytic inquiries other than whether a program is “good” or “bad.” It allows for the
possibility of “good” corporate welfare-programs that confer subsidies on business but are merited because of overall public gain. There ARE cases of “good” corporate welfare, but these too should be subjected to proper procedural and substantive checks.
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p. 31
Oct 9, 2000
Corporate welfare is a function of political corruption
Corporate welfare-the enormous and myriad subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, tax loopholes, debt revocations, loan guarantees, and other benefits conferred by government on business-is a function of political corruption. Corporate welfare programs siphon
funds from appropriate public investments, subsidize companies ripping minerals from federal lands, enable pharmaceutical companies to gouge consumers, perpetuate anti-competitive oligopolistic markets, injure national security, & weaken our democracy.
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p. 13
Oct 9, 2000
S&L bailout helped bankers & hurt consumers
Perhaps the largest corporate welfare expenditure of all time-ultimately set to cost taxpayers $500 billion in principal and interest-the savings and loan bailout is in a large part a story of political corruption, the handiwork of the industry’s legion
of lobbyists and political payoffs to campaign contributors. The well-connected S&L industry successfully lobbied Congress for a deregulatory bill in the early 1980s, which the industry from historic constraints and paved the way for the speculative and
corrupt failures that came soon after. When Congress finally did address the problem, it put the bailout burden on the backs of taxpayers, rather than on the financial industry.
Congress even refused in the bailout legislation to include measures
to empower consumers to band together into financial consumer associations-a modest quid pro quo that would have imposed zero financial cost and would have enabled consumers to act on their own to prevent future S&L-style crises and bailouts.
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p. 15-16
Oct 9, 2000
Rules needed for examining & challenging corporate welfare
[I propose] a new framework for analyzing corporate welfare; probing questions to ask of government subsidy programs for big business:- What rationales do private interests use to secure subsidies, and then shield them from legislative and judicial
challenges?
- How do corporate welfare programs become entrenched and immune to cessation or reform?
- To what extent do foreign corporations benefit from the expenditure of US taxpayer dollars?
- How can fair pricing mechanisms be used to allow
beneficial programs to be preserved, while eliminating welfare subsidy programs?
- What criteria should determine when corporate welfare programs should simply be cancelled?
- What administrative due process should apply to corporate welfare? How
can taxpayers be given standing and procedural rights to challenge arbitrary agency action?
- How do economic subsidies disadvantage non-subsidized businesses and foster undesirable market outcomes?
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p. 29-30
Oct 9, 2000
Disallow benefits to companies except for public purposes
A series of inquisitive screens can be applied to corporate welfare programs, regardless of their merit:Does the program serve some broad public purpose that suggests it has merits beyond the benefits it confers on particular companies? If not, the
program should be cancelled. If it does serve some public interest, can the government achieve the same ends by retaining an interest in an asset being given away of doing a service in-house?Does the program involve functions that should be
properly left to the market? Is there any reason the government should not charge for services provided?Are there non-monetary reciprocal obligations that should be demanded? These might include reasonable pricing of government-subsidized goods
and services provided to consumers.Is the program subject to judicial challenge? What are the avenues for citizen challenge?Is there an institutional means of periodic review? Are criteria delineated by which the program should be evaluated?
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p. 31-32
Oct 9, 2000
Stadiums & other local tax abatements ignore small business
Large corporations routinely pit states and cities against each other in bidding contests that are structurally biased in favor of Big Business. The price of their doing business, they communicate explicitly and implicitly, is massive subsidization by
local and state authorities-through tax abatements, government financing of building projects, improper use of eminent domain, or other supports. This is corporate welfare in its rawest form. Among the most outrageous types of bidding for business
involves sports stadiums. Now gambling casinos are looking for similar subsidies.
Many tax breaks and abatements are directed to specific companies. They properly raise the public ire as citizens demand to know why the rich and powerful have taxes
forgiven while local small businesses are required to pay their fair share without special dispensation. This should sharpen the cutting edge of a nascent movement to end corporate welfare as we know it.
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p. 35-36
Oct 9, 2000
Federal regulation of state & local abatements & subsidies
Some corrective policy initiatives to oppose local and state giveaways:- States and localities should adopt a policy of annual disclosure of all corporate welfare recipients.
- Where state and local governments decide that taxpayer support for a
business is necessary, they should include binding commitments that recipients deliver on job creation and other promises.
- Congress should encourage states to refuse to enter a race to the bottom against each other in terms of special tax breaks and
related benefits.
- The federal government should levy a surtax on companies receiving state and local tax breaks, treating the tax breaks as income upon which federal tax should be paid.
- Finally, there must be court tests of the claim that the
provision of tax subsidies and similar incentives distort economic decision-making concerning the location of business activity and therefore constitutes an unconstitutional infringement of Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce.
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p. 44-45
Oct 9, 2000
Bailouts: require payback; practice prevention by regulation
The bailout, a premier form of corporate welfare, is yet another market distortion against the interests of small and medium-sized businesses. Bailouts are different from other corporate welfare categories in that they are ad hoc and unplanned. Some
lessons from recent bailout experience:- Congress should prioritize the issue of payback in full, after the company is nursed back to health.
- Monetary payback is not enough. Because the government is doing more than making a market-justified loan,
it has the right to make demands designed to prevent the need for future bailouts.
- The S&L crisis was triggered in large part by industry deregulation. This should be an important cautionary note: that underregulation paves the way for bailouts,
especially in the financial sector.
- Strong anti-trust policy and enforcement is a vital prophylactic against the emergence of too-big-to-fail institutions which are sure to benefit from a government bailout in the face of potential collapse.
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p. 69-71
Oct 9, 2000
Legislation to eliminate all corporate welfare
A Bill to Eliminate All Corporate Welfare: A simple bill could provide a valuable tool for citizen education and organizing. Such legislation would not propose a permanent ban on corporate welfare, but would require affirmative re-commencement
of subsidies under both procedural safeguards and reciprocal obligations. The central operative language for such a bill might read:- Every federal agency shall terminate all below-market-rate sales or arrangements with for-profit beneficiaries;
shall cease making any below-market-rate loans; shall terminate all export assistance ort marketing promotion for corporations; and shall terminate any below-market-value technology transfer or subsidy of any kind to for-profit corporations.
- The
Internal Revenue Code is amended to eliminate all corporate tax expenditures.
- The Internal Revenue Code is amended so that the value of local and state tax subsidies to corporations shall be treated as income.
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p.116-117
Oct 9, 2000
$1000 bounty for suing for abuse of corporate welfare
Citizen Standing to Sue to Challenge Corporate Welfare Abuses: Citizens could be empowered to mount judicial challenges to runaway agencies that reach beyond their statutory powers. Taxpayers could be given standing to file such suits, by
awarding a $1,000 “bounty” (plus reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs) for those who successfully challenge improper agency action. Consideration should be given to creating an incentive for such suits by awarding successful plaintiffs a
percentage of the money saved through such suits, perhaps according to a sliding scale of declining percentage returns for higher savings with a cap set at certain amounts. Just as qui tam suits under the False Claims Act have helped curtail oil
company underpayment of royalties owed the federal government, so such a measure would create a structural counterbalance to corporate influence over federal agencies.
Source: Cutting Corporate Welfare, p.118
Oct 9, 2000
Big business influence hurts democracy
Over the past twenty years we have seen the unfortunate resurgence of big business influence, generating its unique brand of wreckage,
propaganda and ultimatums on American labor, consumers, taxpayers and most generically, American voters. Big business has been colliding with American democracy and democracy has been losing.
Source: Nomination Acceptance Speech
Jun 25, 2000
Corporate sponsorship turns debates into beer commercials
Complaining that corporate sponsorship is turning presidential debates into beer commercials, Ralph Nader and others filed a suit today against the Federal Election Commission over how the debates are financed. The suit, which the plaintiffs say could
affect this fall’s presidential debates, says that corporate financing of the debates amounts to an illegal corporate campaign contribution. It asks the court to strike down the Federal Election Commission regulations that allow corporations -
like Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser and a sponsor of this fall’s debates -- to contribute millions of dollars to the staging of the debates. “It’s turning our presidential debates into a beer commercial,”
Nader said in a telephone interview. “And these companies are really sponsoring an exclusive to our campaign commercial for Bush and Gore.”
Source: Carey Goldberg, NY Times, p. A20
Jun 20, 2000
Corporate government has hijacked political leadership
Over the past 20 years, big business has increasingly dominated our political economy. This control by the corporate government over our political government is creating a widening “democracy gap.” Active citizens are left shouting their concerns over a
deep chasm between them and their government. This is a world away from the legislative milestones seen in the 60s and 70s. At that time, informed and dedicated citizens powered their concerns through the channels of government to produce laws that
bettered the lives of millions of Americans.Today we face grave and growing societal problems in health care, education, labor, energy and the environment. These are problems for which active citizens have solutions, yet their voices are not carrying
across the democracy gap. Citizen groups and individual thinkers have generated a tremendous capital of ideas and solutions, while our government has been drawn away from us by a corporate government. Our political leadership has been hijacked.
Source: Green Party Announcement Speech
Feb 21, 2000
States & the public should oppose corporate tax breaks
What are the possible remedies for the megabillion-dollar corporate welfare epidemic? State governments should agree among themselves not to engage in races to the bottom [via tax breaks]. And the national government should work to
abolish such subsidies entirely. The public should initiate a constitutional challenge to tax inducements designed to lure companies across state lines. [Some scholars] argue that such actions violate the interstate commerce clause. It’s a sound argument
Source: “In the Public Interest” newspaper column
Apr 14, 1999
Role of government is to counteract power of corporations
I like Thomas Jefferson’s definition of government: Do together what we can’t do by ourselves. And that the function of representative government is to counteract what he called “the excesses of the monied interests”-that today is the corporate
interests. There’s other things-not only the defense of the country but public health, public safety, research and development-that only government can generate, and we’d better take control of it and have it represent people instead of corporations.
Source: National Public Radio, interview by Diane Rehm
Apr 3, 1996
Coined the term “corporate welfare”
Q: The term “corporate welfare” has been around since 1956, when Ralph Nader first brought it up. What do you mean by corporate welfare? A: Corporate welfare comes in two forms
and many variations. One is the active form. That includes agribusiness subsidies, military contractor subsidies, loan guarantees, bailouts of S&Ls. There are giveaways of minerals on federal lands,
there are giveaways of computer databases. Then there’s the passive corporate welfare, which are the tax breaks, the loopholes. There are dozens of those, they make up about half the tax
code. One example is that foreign corporations don’t pay many taxes at all. And then there are the rates themselves -- if you’re an individual you pay a higher rate than a corporation.
Source: Utne Community, interview by Monika Bauerlein
Jul 2, 1995