The recent economic crisis demonstrates that such businesses will now be rescued at taxpayer’s expense when they suddenly collapse. The CEO of AIG has even demonstrated on national TV that big business leaders expect tax funded rescues. And that diminishes a primary incentive for them to be efficient and prudent. It may even encourage their board members to strategically create a crisis requiring a government bailout rather than suffer losses over time on their own. These business leaders have developed an attitude of entitlement that should inspire corporate welfare reform.

If businesses that are too big to fail are allowed to exist, then they should pay for their own government entitlement programs. This has been the arrangement for the lower classes. That is why social security tax rates in the United States become less for those who become wealthier. Wage earners should not be expected to pay for business welfare too. The influence these businesses have over markets should help them pay for their government programs. And to discourage corporate welfare fraud, those in charge of businesses that either purposely or by neglect cause the government to pay for their rescue should be punished for a kind of embezzlement.

Bryant Arms