Taxpayer $hakedown How You Pay Big Corporations to Trash Public Lands Corporate Welfare According to a November, 1999 report in Time, the U.S. Government spends about $125 billion per year on corporate handouts. Corporate welfare costs every American the equivalent of two weeks' pay. A portion of this sum subsidizes the destruction of publicly owned lands. Logging The federal logging program drains about $1.2 billion from the federal treasury every year. Subsidies to logging corporations include road building, management, reforestation and other services. And Big Timber enjoys substantial tax breaks. Check out this report on the Forest Service's mismanagement of our tax dollars. Mining Mining subsidies cost Americans $3.5 billion per year. Since 1872, the federal government has given away more than 3.2 million acres to mining companies - equivalent to the size of Connecticut. The government has given away at least $245 billion worth of assets.* *Source: Take the Rich Off Welfare by Mark Zepezauer and Arthur Naiman. Grazing According to the Cato Institute, a conservative Washington, DC think tank, public lands grazing has cost taxpayers billions since 1945, at the rate of $200 million per year. Welfare ranchers are also subsidized by Wildlife Services, a government agency that kills predators for free.