New Year's resolutions

[Janice Shields <jshields@essential.org>]

	                        NEWS RELEASE

For Release:                Contacts: Ralph Nader and Janice Shields 
Jan. 1, 1996 
          
                           			  

	             NADER'S NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION FOR CEOs: 
                             CUT CORPORATE WELFARE

	On Tuesday, December 19, 1995, 91 CEOs signed a letter to 
President Clinton and all Members of Congress,  which also was printed in 
major newspapers, calling on the President and Congress to balance the 
budget.  Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader is responding by sending letters 
to all of the signatories of the letter asking them, as part of their New 
Year's resolutions, to identify the federal subsidies and tax 
expenditures that benefit their corporations and to select the subsidies 
and tax expenditures that the CEOs agree to begin to forego immediately 
in order to help balance the budget.  

	According to Ralph Nader, "These so-called free-market executives 
who demand that the federal budget be balanced should be willing to help 
eliminate the deficit by cutting their own corporate welfare."

The text of the letter sent to the CEOs follows:

	On Tuesday, December 19, 1995, 91 CEOs signed a letter to 
President Clinton, House Speaker Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Bob 
Dole, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, House Majority Leader Dick 
Armey, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and all members of Congress.  
In the letter, which also appeared in two-page advertisements in the New 
York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, you implored 
Congress to balance the budget.

	To balance the budget, federal expenditures must be reduced and
federal revenues must be increased.  Spending would fall if corporate
subsidies were cut and revenues would rise if tax expenditures were
eliminated.  For example, if Congress abolished only five corporate
subsidies, $5.12 billion would be saved in fiscal year 1996; these
subsidies provide government funding for activities that free-market
proponents would argue should be financed by businesses themselves. (The
subsidies include those provided by the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas
Private Investment Corporation, the Export Enhancement Program, the Market
Promotion Program and the Foreign Military Financing Program.) If Congress
removed only five corporate tax expenditures, an additional $46.4 billion
in federal revenue would be generated in fiscal year 1996.  (The tax
expenditures include accelerated depreciation on equipment and buildings,
reduced rates on the first $10,000 of corporate taxable income, the
exception to the source rule for the sale of inventory property, tax
credits for corporations with income in U.S. possessions and expensing
rather than amortization of research and development costs.)

	I call on you to validate your appeal for a balanced budget by 
signing and returning [by January 30, 1996] the enclosed New Year's 
resolution identifying federal subsidies and tax expenditures that 
currently benefit your corporation and selecting the subsidies and tax 
expenditures that your corporation agrees to begin to forego immediately.

The text of the proposed New Year's resolution for CEOs follows:

	          CORPORATE NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION
	              ON FEDERAL SUBSIDIES AND 
                          TAX EXPENDITURES


	On December 19, 1995, I was one of 91 corporate signatories to a 
letter supporting a balanced budget, which was sent to President Clinton 
and all Members of Congress.

	To help balance the budget, I have identified the federal 
subsidies and tax expenditures that currently benefit my corporation and 
selected the subsidies and tax expenditures that my corporation agrees to 
begin to forego immediately.


                        	###


-----
Janice Shields
Coordinator, Corporate Welfare Project & TaxWatch
Center for Study of Responsive Law
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC  20036
202-387-8030			|   Internet:	jshields@essential.org