(2 of 2)
Don and Jim don't ignore rotten apples, but their passion is for writing about rotten barrels. They also focus not only on the winners--in TIME's series, the recipients of the government giveaways--but also on the losers: people who have no clout. The result, I hope you agree, is an unparalleled expose of a system gone terribly wrong.
Some may call this series antibusiness, but I believe nothing is further from the truth. Although the largest companies are the primary beneficiaries of various corporate-welfare programs, I don't view them as villains. Business enterprises like General Motors and General Electric are designed to make money. They would be derelict if they didn't seek to avoid taxes and gain special subsidies. No, the villains are the federal, state and local governments that reward some companies while denying similar largesse to other corporate and individual taxpayers. Those many chambers of commerce and other business organizations that argue for more corporate subsidies need also to be singled out for censure.
Although ending corporate welfare as we know it is essential, it has become so much a part of the way corporations do business that change will not come easily. No individual or corporation wants to pay higher taxes. Rather than give corporations uneven and unfair exemptions, it may make more sense to simply do away with both corporate welfare and corporate taxation. That would create a level playing field that would replace the current system of favoritism, bribery, subsidies and threats.
I am not sure that Don and Jim (or, for that matter, many of our readers) would go that far. But after reading their series, I think it will be hard to argue that we need the wasteful programs they have exposed. Change won't come, however, until all of us realize that corporate welfare represents a giveaway that takes all of us for a ride.
Norman Pearlstine, Editor-in-Chief