George W. Bush and congressional leaders are busy patting themselves on the back now that Bush has signed into law a bill he says will crack down on corporate fraud, protect investors and provide strong oversight of the accounting industry.

If Bush and federal lawmakers were sincere about making companies stand on their on two feet, they would end ADC—Aid to Dependent Corporations. The federal government spends more than $100 billion a year on direct subsidies and tax breaks to businesses, according to statistics compiled by conservative, progressive and libertarian think tanks. By contrast, Aid for Families with Dependent Children cost less than $15 billion a year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s market promotion program shells out more than $100 million a year in just one program designed to help U.S. companies advertise their products overseas. Some of the nation’s top companies—McDonalds, General Mills, Campbell’s Soup, Sunkist Growers, Ernest and Julio Gallo wineries, Miller’s beer and Pillsbury—have accepted federal dollars to market their products overseas.

As Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas) once said, “I wonder about our commitment to deficit reduction if we cannot take Betty Crocker, Ronald McDonald and the Pillsbury Doughboy off the dole.”

But Armey has supported dole in the form of farm subsidies. According to the Cato Institute in Washington, “Since 1985, the federal farm price support programs have cost U.S. consumers and taxpayers some $370 billion—enough money to purchase all the farmland in 41 states.”

Unlike the early days, when the subsidies went to struggling farmers, today’s payments are more likely to go to corporate conglomerates. For instance, the federal sugar program provides more than $1 million each to the owners of the top 33 sugar plantations in the country.

Taxpayers are also getting fleeced at the local and state level.

According to “Time” magazine:

* In 1989, Illinois gave $240 million in economic incentives to Sears, Roebuck & Co. to keep its 5,400 jobs and corporate headquarters in state, a subsidy of $44,000 per employee;

* In 1991, Indiana gave United Airlines $451 million in economic incentives to build an aircraft maintenance facility in the state, a cost of $73,00 per job;

* Alabama, in 1993, gave Mercedes-Benz $253 million to build an assembly plant near Tuscaloosa, Ala. The 1,500 workers were subsidized at a rate of $169,000 per job;

* In 1997, Pennsylvania gave $307 million in economic incentives to Kvaerner ASA, a Norwegian engineering and construction firm, to open a shipyard in Philadelphia, employing 950 people at a subsidy rate of $323,000 for each job.

The rationale offered for corporate welfare is that when the government subsidizes companies, they will provide more jobs and, by extension, more taxes to federal and local authorities. But it hasn’t worked out that way. “Time” magazine points out that Fortune 500 companies “have erased more jobs than they have created this past decade, and yet they are the biggest beneficiaries of corporate welfare.”

In the case of Philadelphia, the magazine computed that even if each job paid $50,000 and each worker paid an average of $6,700 in local and state taxes. At that rate, it would take nearly a half-century to recoup the money lost to create the new job.

If members of Congress wanted to show some moxie, they’d end the practice of adding pork-barrel projects to legislation to help some pet project back home. For more than a decade, Sen. John McCain has been waging a lonely battle to curb this practice. He goes through each major bill and publicizes the “pork” packed inside.

After examining the 2000 defense appropriation bill, the Arizona senator found “over $6 billion worth of pork.” “No credible budget process can withstand such abuse indefinitely and still retain the level of legitimacy needed to properly represent the interests of the nation as a whole,” he said.

McCain is right. But I don’t expect the lawmakers to heal themselves. Listening to George W. Bush and members of Congress decry corporate abuse is akin to hearing Jim or Frank Perdue complain about death rate of chicken. Perdue has a much stronger case.