My biggest pet peeve in life is people who rail against social welfare and congratulate the Republican party for “successful” welfare reform.

Last weekend my boyfriend and I had a three hour political discussion with two friends of ours. It all began when they used anecdotal evidence to suggest social welfare is nothing more than government waste and tax payer fraud.

One of the biggest problems facing this country is the national debt. Instead of finding an appropriate level for taxes and cutting wasteful spending to balance the budget, a lot of politicians have found it takes the heat off themselves to blame an easy target for this country’s debt.

They blame the unfortunate recipients of welfare — the single mothers, children, elderly and the disabled who are too busy trying to survive to defend themselves.

And the public follows their lead, blaming social welfare for everything from creating the national debt to ruining family values.

Okay, so social welfare programs need reform. I doubt anyone, no matter what political affiliation, can argue with that.

But why are the taxpayers, media and lawmakers focusing all the attention on “social” welfare?

What about “corporate” welfare?

Why isn’t there any action to reform corporate welfare since welfare to wealthy corporations costs this country far more than the aid we give to poor kids?

Never heard of corporate welfare? Well, let me fill you in on one of the biggest wastes of the hard-earned taxpayer dollar.

Critics of welfare get all worked up over the faceless mythical bunch of “lazy, cheating-the-taxpayer, having-more-kids-to-get-more-welfare-benefits” recipients of social welfare.

During debate last year on welfare reform in the House of Representatives, a placard was held up by Rep. John L. Mica (R-Florida) that read: Do not feed the alligators.

Children receiving a measly $175 per month in welfare benefits are “alligators?” I have a hard time calling disadvantaged children alligators.

The real alligators are the freeloading corporations greedily gobbling up millions of taxpayer dollars in the form of corporate welfare. Each year, these “welfare queen” corporations gobble up nearly $170 billion in tax-funded handouts. That’s $1,388 from the average taxpayer.

By contrast, social welfare (programs like the former Aid to Families with Dependent Children, reduced-cost school lunches and housing assistance) add up to $50 billion each year. That’s $300 from the average taxpayer.

Corporate welfare, like social welfare, has many forms. It exists in direct cash handouts, tax breaks and exemptions, subsidies and free or reduced cost government goods and services.

And as one political satirist put it, this is not government cheese we’re talking about here.

Examples of corporate welfare include: McDonald’s receiving $1.6 million in federal funds to promote Chicken McNuggets in Singapore from 1986-1994; sugar subsidies to the tune of $3 billion per year to multi-million dollar companies such as Archer Daniels Midland.

Mercedes — not even a U.S. company — receiving $253 million in state and federal funded “incentives;” Exxon writing off in tax deductions nearly $300 million of the settlement they paid when the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil; Pillsbury receiving $11 million to promote the Pillsbury Dough Boy products in foreign countries. Unfortunately, the list continues on and on.

Whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican or have no party affiliation, look at the facts concerning both social and corporate welfare. Where are the people who are supposedly getting rich off welfare? They’re certainly not the real life single mothers and their children scrounging for next month’s rent. The people getting rich off welfare are corporations making millions or even billions of dollars in annual profits.

We need to start focusing national attention on the evils of corporate welfare in order to balance the budget and provide tax payer relief. And corporate welfare is evil. It’s costing the taxpayers way too much money to pad the wallets of corporate CEOs and top executives.

How does corporate welfare exist? We can find out simply by following the trail of money.

A politician sponsors a rider on a bill to allow a corporation some type of tax break or subsidy. The corporation receives that tax break/subsidy, enabling it to make more money than ever in profits. Election year creeps up on the politician and the corporation eagerly lends financial backing to the re-election campaign. This happens over and over and over again.

I’m tired of hearing promises about welfare reform only to find out it’s really social welfare cuts. When are we going to start talking about corporate welfare reform?

The next time you look at your pay stub and complain about all the money you’ll never see, blame the real “welfare queens” in this country. It’s time to stop blaming the poor and the children. It’s time to make corporations pay for their own taxes, their own investments and their own capital depreciation.

It’s time to stop feeding the real alligators.

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Jonquil Wegmann is a senior in community and regional planning from Bellevue.