Open letter to the Republicans and Rep. Paul Ryan

Open letter to Rep. Paul Ryan and the House Republicans

KILL CORPORATE WELFARE!

There, I said it. If you want to have even a shred of dignity and a snowball's chance of getting your much-needed budget-cutting ideas through the House, the Senate and then signed by the President, you need to remove the most egregious and hypocritical-appearing part of our current spending regimen.

Is there some good done by corporate welfare, AKA "Targeted Tax Policy"? Sure. Every tax law (except some by Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and Charlie Rangel) started out as a sincere attempt to cause something beneficial to happen. Same with welfare and entitlements. But as so often occurs, the Law of Unintended Consequences trumps all other laws and no good deed goes unpunished.

If the Federal Government wants to cause things to happen, why don't we come up with a better way than bribing corporate entities or people by allowing them to keep more of their own money if they do what you want them to do? Just give them the damned money! Get it out in the open. Create a grant system that say "If you do so and so, we will cut you a check." Then create a website that publicizes all of the grants that have been issued so we all know where the money went. Simple. (Do it for all grants and credits, and you might find that not as many grants are requested...)

Rep. Ryan, as soon as you start hacking away at Medicare and Medicaid, the Left will throw corporate welfare in your face. Start by disallowing them the use of that issue as a cudgel. Show them that you are a better man. You and the Republicans know that some businesses will get hurt by this decision. The Democrats know that some deserving, disadvantaged people will get hurt by your cuts. We all know that there are a lot of people on both sides getting benefits that they really do not deserve.

Whatever you decide to do is going to cause someone some pain. Spread the pain around (to paraphrase then-candidate Barack Obama). Isn't it funny how something that has been in the budget only a year or two becomes a life or death proposition to remove?

You have my sympathy and support for your task of slaying the Medusa we call our tax code. If I had designed a piece of software that looked like that, I would just hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and start over.

But then, you would be hurting the lawyers, accountants and lobbyists.

You just can't win, can you?

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