An editorial in today's WSJ says that if there is one thing the OWS and Tea Party faithful should be able to come together it's an end to corporate welfare:
As important as this economic damage is the corrosive effect that corporate welfare has on public trust in government. Americans understand that powerful government invariably favors the powerful, who have the means and access to massage Congress and the bureaucracy that average citizens do not. This really is aid to the 1% paid by the other 99%.
Yet the parade of subsidies gets longer each year, perhaps, as the old joke goes, because in Washington Republicans love corporations and Democrats love welfare. As House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan puts it: "How can we save billions of dollars from unjustified subsidy and entitlement programs, if we can't get corporate America off the dole?"
With American federal debt headed toward the worst European levels, this is an issue that should unite the tea party, the Occupy Wall Street protesters and Congressional deficit-cutters.
The problem with the OWS crew is that most of them would aim to merely replace corporate welfare with more of the direct variety. The extent of any agreement between the two groups would be identifying the problem, not implementing the solution.
