One of the biggest problems facing this country is the national debt, which is either spiraling out of control or is finally under control, depending on which economic analyst you listen to.

Turn on CNN and you’ll see political pundits arguing about welfare reform.

Open the newspaper and you’ll read about Congress’ new cuts in social programs.

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

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

A placard held up by Representative John L. Mica (R-Fla.) during debate on the House welfare bill read: “Do not feed the alligators.”

Just who are these “alligators,” greedily gobbling up hard-earned taxpayer dollars?

Let’s take a quick look at the facts:

All of our social programs combined add up to $50 billion per year.

That breaks down to about $1.14 per day for each taxpayer.

Corporate welfare, on the other hand, costs taxpayers $170 billion every year.

That breaks down to an average taxpayer paying $1,388 per year to provide welfare to wealthy corporations.

You may wonder, what is corporate welfare?

Corporate welfare is most often subsidies given to corporations in the form of outright cash, tax breaks, tax exemptions and below-market-cost government goods and services.

Just to illustrate my point further, here are some very specific examples of corporate welfare:

1. Exxon collected its corporate welfare check by receiving nearly $300 million in tax deductions on the settlement they paid when the Exxon-Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound.

2. Pillsbury collected its corporate welfare check by taking $11 million from the government to promote the Pillsbury Dough Boy in foreign countries.

3. Royal Caribbean Cruise Line collected its corporate welfare check by paying zero taxes from 1989-1992, while making $158 million in profits.

The list of examples continues — much too long for this column.

You may be wondering why politicians would make laws providing for all of this corporate welfare.

You may be wondering why politicians would do this when they are telling us they are trying to balance the budget.

You may even be wondering why politicians would tell us they need to cut education, student loans, Medicare, AFDC and other beneficial programs in order to balance the budget.

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 then receives that tax break/subsidy, enabling them to make more money than ever in profits and attribute it to their own good business sense.

Election year creeps up on the politician, and the corporation eagerly lends financial backing.

This scenario happens over and over and over again.

I’m tired of hearing promises about welfare reform only to find out it is really social welfare cuts.

What about corporate welfare reform?

When are we going to stop blaming the national debt on the unfortunate single moms and their kids trying to survive on $200 per month?

When are we going to make corporations pay for their own taxes, their own own investments and their own capital depreciation?

It’s time to end corporate welfare as we know it and balance the budget by making corporations pay their fair share.

It’s time to stop feeding the real alligators.

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