[krisdol]

Apple has yet to provide me with food stamps or public housing, both of which saved me when I was a refugee. I can check with my spouse but I'm pretty sure the public hospital she works at was not an apple product.

The rest is just ridiculous. If you want an effective government, you have to take privatization out of it, not rely on it as we have.

[adventured]

Apple paid $46 billion in just income taxes over the last three fiscal years. The majority of that was likely in the US market, where they're more heavily taxed and have a very large market share.

I don't know where you live, but if it's in the US, then you're wrong: they did in fact help pay for food stamps and public housing.

Last fiscal year, Apple generated $72.5 billion in income before income taxes, and paid $19.1 billion in income taxes ($53.3b in net income). That's a 26.3% rate. That rate is higher than corporations pay in almost any other developed nation (Europe typically has the lowest corporate income tax rates for example), and that's after they go out of their way to try to avoid paying taxes. That $19 billion in taxes pays for a lot of welfare state benefits.

[NLips]

The parent's point is precisely that: The welfare is paid by the government, with money that it takes in taxes from e.g. corporations.