Moore: Biggest Corporate Welfare Queens

"If Republicans are going to get truly serious about cutting government spending, they are going to have to snip the umbilical cord from the Treasury to corporate America," writes Stephen Moore. "You can't reform welfare programs for the poor until you've gotten Daddy Warbucks off the dole. Voters will insist on that — as well they should."

Moore cites a report by watchdog group Open the Books, which monitors federal grants, loans, direct payments and insurance subsidies paid out by the federal government to individuals and corporations.

From 2000 to 2012, Fortune 100 companies received $1.2 Trillion in payments from the federal government, notes Moore; and that "number does not include the hundreds of billions of dollars in housing, bank and auto company bailouts in 2008 and 2009... [nor] the asset purchases of the Federal Reserve or indirect subsidies like the ethanol mandate that enrich large agribusinesses such as Archer Daniels Midland" (ADM).

So who are the biggest corporate welfare queens?

Federal Contract Spending (the largest of which is military contracts): Lockheed Martin ($392 billion); General Dynamics ($170 billion); and United Technologies ($73 billion).  Moore argues that taxpayers at least get services in exchange for these tax dollars.

Biggest Grant Recipients (mostly for President Obama's 'green technologies'):  General Electric ($380 million); General Motors ($370 million), Boeing ($264 million), Archer Daniels Midland ($174 million), and United Technologies ($160 million).

Taxpayer-Subsidized Loans totaling $8.5 billion: Exxon Mobil, Ford Motor, and Chevron.

Federal Insurance Bonds (not including TARP money): Wells Fargo ($3 billion); JPMorgan Chase ($3 billion); Citigroup ($1.5 billion); and Bank of America ($1.5 billion).

Concludes Moore:

The pipeline of federal dollars into the coffers of corporate America runs so full now that many top university MBA schools offer courses in how to lobby for government grants, contracts and other giveaways.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., are two of the few heroes willing to take on the corporate titans feeding off the taxpayers. The cowardice of the rest of the party leaders may explain why congressional Republicans are so unpopular with voters these days.