Corporate Welfare for Mickey Mouse

Corporate Welfare for Mickey Mouse
"Earlier this month, the Senate passed the Travel Promotion Act by a lopsided margin of 79–19. The name is innocuous enough. Read the fine print, however, and the bill becomes rather less appealing. It’s corporate welfare for Mickey Mouse.

Here’s a little background on the bill. The TPA directs the Department of Homeland Security to impose a $10 fee on foreign citizens who visit America under the visa-waiver program. That program lets people from 35 countries, mostly in Europe, travel to the U.S. without first obtaining a visa. Instead, travelers register with DHS’s online security system before coming to this country.

The DHS fee could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade. (In 2006 alone, the United States welcomed some 18 million visitors from visa-waiver countries.) The fees will be used to fund a new nonprofit known as the Corporation for Travel Promotion. Its mission is to “promot[e] the United States of America to world travelers,” and it will do so via multimillion-dollar ad campaigns.

What could be wrong with that?"

PLENTY! READ IT ALL!!