I hear often people saying there is too much free stuff given away by the government. Almost always this ire is directed towards people on the lower end of the economic spectrum, and that this is how people have their votes purchased. What I very rarely hear spoken against, however, is the much vaster sum of money that is given to the already rich and powerful; corporations and the super-rich - people who have vastly more political influence than people who receive some form of social welfare. This is why I consider Free Lunch and Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston to be such important books. They detail how our economic system has been rigged across decades to transfer the nation's wealth from the many to the few, flowing money upwards like Niagra Falls in reverse, and how the wealthy benefit extensively from taxpayer subsidies.
So today I come across this: a detailed article about how corporate tax breaks are leading to the defunding of education across the nation. Read it and weep for the future: "Students lose out as cities and states give billions in property tax breaks to businesses − draining school budgets and especially hurting the poorest students."
What exactly Atlanta and other cities and states are accomplishing with tax abatement programs is hard to discern. Fewer than a quarter of companies that receive breaks in the U.S. needed an incentive to invest, according to a 2018 study by the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a nonprofit research organization.
This means that at least 75% of companies received tax abatements when they’re not needed – with communities paying a heavy price for economic development that sometimes provides little benefit.
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