are is anti-capitalist. As Wall Street financier Theodore J. Forstmann has put it, corporate welfare has led to the creation in America of the ``statist businessman,'' who has been converted from a capitalist into a lobbyist. Corporate welfare is unconstitutional. Corporate subsidy programs lie outside Congress's limited spending authority under the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress granted the authority to spend taxpayer dollars to subsidize the computer industry, or to enter into joint ventures with automobile companies, or to guarantee loans to favored business owners. The central premise behind corporate welfare programs is that the best way to enhance business profitability is to do so one firm at a time. In fact, the best thing government can do to promote economic growth is to simply get out of the way and let private entrepreneurs with their own capital at risk determine how the economy's resources will be directed. That means creating a level playing field, which minimizes government interference in the marketplace, and dramatically reducing the overall cost and regulatory burden of government. Terminating the dozens of unnecessary corporate welfare programs and reforming the tax code are essential parts of bringing that about.Congress should terminate programs that provide direct grants to businesses; eliminate programs that provide research and other services for industries; end programs that provide subsidized loans or insurance to businesses; eliminate trade barriers designed to protect U.S. firms in specific industries from foreign competition at the expense of higher prices for American consumers; base defense procurement contract decisions on national security needs, not on the number of jobs created in key members' districts; and eliminate the income tax loopholes carved out solely for specific companies or industries and substantially lower the tax rate so that there is no net revenue increase.Conc...
