Oct 29, 2012 2 min read

Conservatives really dislike people they believe are dependent on government. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney stated as much at the Florida fundraiser in May when he remarked, “There are 47 percent of the people who are dependent upon government, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them. My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” In 2010, conservative members of the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case that corporations can spend as much money as they like helping politicians get elected. The court argued that corporations have free-speech rights, just like people. In essence, corporations are no different from people. The result is massive corporate spending in this election. Romney appeared to agree when he said, “corporations are people, too.” Shell, one of the biggest and most profitable corporations in the world, was offered $1.65 billion by Gov. Tom Corbett to locate a gas processing plant near Pittsburgh. Shell won’t locate there without this subsidy. Government-dependent, in other words. Every year, energy corporations are given federal government subsidies. Last year, it was $37 billion. In 2009, the auto industry was bailed out to the tune of $80 billion. Since 2008, Wall Street financial corporations, the ones that caused the national and global economy to crash, have been bailed out to the tune of $13 trillion. All these corporations are government-dependent, and there are countless other examples. Let’s put these numbers into perspective. The median household income in Greene and Washington counties combined is about $48,000. It would take such a household 34,375 years to earn the handout given to Shell, 770,833 years to earn the handouts given to energy corporations annually, 1,666,667 years to earn the handout given to auto corporations, and 270,833,333 years to earn the handout given to Wall Street corporations. If conservatives think corporations are people, why don’t they, including Romney, disown them for being on government welfare? If you’re going to point out that Romney was talking about people who pay no income tax, it just so happens that most large corporations pay no or little income tax. It’s not difficult to research this fact A monumental double standard, agreed? Robert Hanham Carmichaels