opinion

Taxpayers: Stop subsidizing corporations

Father John W. Cahill was director of justice and peace for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington.

The recent decision of Los Angeles to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 (joining San Francisco and Seattle) is a wake-up call.

It exposes hidden corporate welfare. It makes it clear that the shareholders of many U.S. corporations and small businesses get a free gift from American taxpayers.

By paying such low wages, many corporations expect that their employees will survive by dependence upon (and will qualify for and desperately need) government subsidies for food, shelter and health care.

I am not begrudging those folks who work hard and long and unpredictable hours, whose managers manipulate the payroll so that few are considered full-time (and thus do not qualify for payroll benefits many take for granted: health insurance, retirement benefits, paid vacations, maternity/paternity leave, sick days etc.) and who receive such poor wages and little or no benefits.

I do begrudge those corporations and other businesses that are dependent upon taxpayers to subsidize their workforce.

In fact, it is corporations who are feeding off the public trough, not those who receive such pitiful wages and benefits. Taxpayers are subsidizing many owners of fast food restaurants and many other "enterprises" that pay less than subsistent wages. We are keeping their workers alive.

It is time to tell corporations that taxpayers have had enough. We are not going to provide you with cheap labor out of our wallets while you receive favored tax rates on capital gains, reinvested dividends, accelerated depreciation, tax abatements etc. etc. and severely underpay your workers. We will not blame those on "welfare," rather we blame you. We expect that the taxpayer benefits we afford you will "trickle down" to your low-paid employees in fact, not just in theory.

Taxpayers should demand that workers receive a living (not just a subsistent) wage. This must be a decision on the federal level lest suppressing wages will become on more weapon in the competition between states to encourage business relocation. We know, wherever you live, that $15 an hour will barely support a family of four nor come close to paying for post- secondary education for children who work part-time, live at home and contribute to the family budget. .

The working poor are poor because they don't get paid enough for the work upon which we all depend. They are not poor because they are depraved or delinquent or lazy. They are poor because corporate profits trump the common good and the irresponsible greed for profits devastates the economy.

Further, taxpayers should vigorously support unionization rather than support so-called right-to-work laws which are designed to drive wages and benefits to ever lower levels. We should be empowering workers so they can bargain with some strength for a just share of the wealth they have created. If they received just wages and benefits and safe working conditions this would relieve us from subsidizing the shareholders of the companies for which they work.

There is a reason for the growing economic inequality in our country. This growth has its roots in the obscene remuneration of corporate executives, in the favorable tax treatment of hedge fund operatives Even more there is the ever increasing pressure to maximize shareholder profits at the expense of the workers who actually produce the wealth and of the community which provides the infrastructure to make business possible. Too many have lost sight of the common good and the general welfare We have forgotten John Locke's observation that all wealth originates in labor. We should remember that workers are not commodities but human persons with fundamental rights.