Following in the large footsteps of former Vice President Al Gore, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has been caught telling tall tales. According to an Associated Press story, Reich is claiming to have coined the term "corporate welfare."

Tom Pitoniak, associate editor at dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster, said "corporate welfare" has been used at least since 1979, when the federal government bailed out Chrysler Corp.

"He may think he was the first, but it sounds like someone has been using this term before," Pitoniak said.

A July 1976 article in The Economist decried Japan's "corporate welfare socialism." David Lewis, father of Canada's New Democratic Party, was railing against "corporate welfare bums" -- big businesses who failed to pay their share of taxes -- in 1972.

Reich's campaign manager, Mark Longabaugh, said liberals and conservatives alike have given Reich credit for the phrase -- even if he didn't "invent" it.

"I'm not going to dispute that somebody might have used the term prior to 1990, but clearly there are a lot of people of various stripes who credit Robert Reich with popularizing the term in a political context," Longabaugh said.

It's good to see that Reich is, once again, standing tall.