Biden’s Corporate Welfare Bonanza

Chris Edwards

In his State of the Union speech on March 7, President Biden complained about corporate tax breaks and argued that corporations should pay their fair share:

“I want to talk about the future of possibilities that we can build together — a future where the days of trickle‐​down economics are over and the wealthy and the biggest corporations no longer get all the tax breaks.” [1:01]
“It’s my goal to cut the federal deficit another $3 trillion by making big corporations and the very wealthy finally beginning to pay their fair share.” [1:13]
“The way to make the tax code fair is to make big corporations and the very wealthy begin to pay their share.” [1:15]

That is what President Biden said, but he is a hypocrite. He signed into law three massive bills handing out hundreds of billions of dollars of narrow tax breaks and spending subsidies to big corporations. It is the biggest gusher of corporate welfare ever.

Biden elaborated in his speech, “I also want to end tax breaks for Big Pharma, Big Oil….” But he has given huge tax breaks and spending subsidies to Big Semiconductor, Big Wind, Big Solar, Big Battery, Big Automaker, Big Utility, and so on.

Rather than trickle‐​down economics, this is a Niagara Falls of subsidies flooding from Washington to the president’s favored industries and corporations.

Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, which increased federal subsidies by $548 billion. Tens of billions of dollars were handed out to railroads, electric utilities, broadband companies, the EV industry, and others.

Biden signed the CHIPs and Science Act of 2022, which included $54 billion in subsidies, including $39 billion going to semiconductor companies.

Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which handed out $868 billion in energy subsidies, most of it to big corporations, including automakers, utilities, manufacturers, and hydrogen producers. Adam Michel finds that Biden’s energy tax subsidies could top $1.8 trillion.

Biden rails against big corporations, but he has given them colossal subsidies.

Travis Fisher looks at Biden’s energy subsidies here.