The scope of corporate welfare policies date back to the close of the year 1960 when President Lyndon developed these policies as a means of addressing pertinent issues aligned with income inequalities. Precisely, corporate welfare policies seek to identify families that are distraughtly. This is attained through calculation of the annual budget spent by a family on food. As such, families whose, income is less than three times of their annual food budget are considered poor. In fact, such families are viewed to be in dire need for public assistance (Mattern, 2006). For this purpose, corporate welfare policies require the government to provide tax advantages and financial aid to business entities and corporations. This has a reciprocal role in reducing the level of poverty in that it enhance an increase in the living standards of the populations.
The main crisis that prompted the need for corporate welfare policies is the significant rise in the levels of poverty. This was evident by a huge economic gap between the rich and the poor. This prompted the need for a policy that can provide adequate and feasible solution towards a reduction in economic inequalities (Mattern, 2006).
Based on a personal thought, welfare policies in the United States have not been effective in that they emphasize more on food costs and access as a measure of poverty levels in the populations. As such, welfare policies only cater for populations who lack adequate access to food. This leaves behind other population who might be poor, but have access to food. As an example, there are certain population segments who are poor because they lack access to adequate housing (Mattern, 2006). However, the existing welfare policies do not factor in such concerns. This is the primary reason as to why welfare policies have not been effective.
If I was the president, I would restructure the existing welfare policies in such a way that it addressed all the needs of the poor. In fact, I would assure that measurement of poverty levels is not limited to food costs only. Instead, poverty levels should be measured comprehensively in order to ensure the plight of all the poor populations are catered for by the existing welfare policies.
Reference
Mattern, M. (2006). Putting ideas to work: A practical introduction to political thought. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
