The Average American Family Pays $6,000 a Year in Subsidies to Big Business
commondreams.org
commondreams.org
First, dividing the total corporate welfare by the number of families and claiming that the result is what an "average family pays" is highly misleading. Most importantly, because of the progressive nature of our tax system, the median family pays much less than an average share of the tax burden.
Second, business incentives granted by localities in the form of, say, reduced property taxes, are not necessarily "costs". If a city has an empty field, and incentivizes MegaCo to build a factory there with $50M in tax breaks, but the resulting jobs and remaining taxes end up being worth $50M, then the city has gained not $0, but $50M, assuming the field would have otherwise remained empty. Obviously there are questions of how effective different incentives are and whether they're ultimately worthwhile, but simply adding up the dollar value of incentives and calling them taxpayer costs is silly.
I could keep going, but enough. commondreams.org links do not belong on hn. If I had a flag button I'd use it, but I lost it during the Great Snowden Hunt.
Checking the references, I also don't see how the 1268 in increased prescription costs can be directly attributable to patents. A portion perhaps. And again not what I would call a subsidy. It also certainly does not come without a price (R&D) to the company.