I selected the reading Aid to Dependent Corporations: Coming to Terms with Exposing Federal Handouts to the Wealthy by Chuck Collins as the topic for my fourth week's position paper. I found this reading interesting because Aid to Dependent Corporations provides readers with the information of the States that have been unusually generous to corporations in the manner they allow them to enjoy tax breaks and avail of public resources such as grazing and mineral-rich land at outrageously low rents. This corporate privilege is called 'wealthfare' and it constitutes an ironic situation because the more important issue of welfare to the poor is neglected. Furthermore, the majority are constrained to support through taxes this anomalous situation. .
Chuck Collins's intentions to expose handouts to the wealthy may be the result of social conflict between the poor and the wealthy. According to our text book, social conflict arises from unequal or unjust social relationships between groups. Many conflicts are caused by economic problems which can also be attributed or blamed to cultural differences. For instance, many people can easily blame non-European immigrants for high unemployment and poor mothers are blamed for almost every imaginable economic and social ill under the sun. (Andersen and Collins 368) When politicians bash poor single mothers for being "lazy," too "dependent," and too fertile, Chuck Collins brings balance to the conflict by exposing the other side of the story.
Collins explains the different types of benefits corporations and the wealthy receive. Instead of calling it welfare for the rich, he simply calls it "Wealthfare." Wealthfare comes in a variety of forms at a time when congress is pursuing the reduction or elimination of benefits to the poor. One form of wealthfare is the discounts ranchers receive for grazing rights on federal lands; that was the case of J. R. Simplot of Grandview, Idaho, who paid $87,000 for grazing rights, about one-quarter the rate charged by private owners (p.
