The story is here, and is more than correct to state:
Unfortunately, crony capitalism is something both parties are willing to get behind. Part of the problem is that voters often approve of these subsidies when the phrase “bringing jobs to the state” is uttered.
We're more like China than we'd like to admit, where state-owned enterprise is the rule. We simply practice state-capitalism-lite.
The data is tracked comprehensively here, updated it appears through 2015. The last time I reported on this in 2015 the top ten crony states alone were up to $96 billion in corporate welfare handouts. Three years later the top 10's cronyism has grown to $133 billion, an increase of nearly 39%.
Free market capitalism this is not.
