The Big Farm Scam
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MJ: This gets a larger question of how conservatives in Congress, who supposedly value fiscal discipline and the free market, have let subsidies of this nature exist for so long.
KC: Both parties have abandoned principles they supposedly hold dear. The Democrats have abandoned their principle of standing up for the little guy and for fairness and not letting big operators scarf up all the money. Republicans have abandoned a principle equally central to their ideology, which is, we ought not to have the government involved in everyone's business to the degree they are, especially when someone is doing very well. I mean, here you have a president who vetoed S-CHIP for the sake of limiting the enrollment of families that he thought were too wealthy to enroll. He was alleging S-CHIP would let middle class families participate. Well, here we have the same kind of situation with agriculture but we're talking not about modest access to an insurance program, were talking about outright government grants, that don't even have to be repaid, of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
MJ: So what is it about the farm bill that makes both parties abandon their core principles?
KC: It's the intensity of a core group of subsidy recipients and a lobby they have nourished over the years to hang onto this money at all costs. And you've got this common interest amongst a fairly small number of legislators. Although every senator has agricultural constituents, the intensity to hang onto these abusive and wasteful programs is rooted in the Midwest and the South.
MJ: But you don't necessarily need to live in those regions to get subsidies, right?
KC: You can find recipients right here in DC. Absentee owners exist everywhere. Let's say you and I are brothers. You came to town to be a journalist, I came to work at an environmental group, but we both came from a farm family in Arkansas. If mom and dad give us 5,000 acres in their will, we don't have to go back down to Arkansas and farm. We'll get the direct payments automatically for that rice and cotton mom and dad kept growing, and on top of that we'll get other payments.
MJ: The relatively small number of lawmakers you mentioned always manage to find their way onto the agricultural committees in the House and Senate.
KC: Oh, yes. That is absolutely critical. We've published the names of all subsidy recipients online. If you just look at who is on the agriculture committees, their districts and states account for 40 or 50 percent of all the subsidy money.
MJ: That would explain why two-thirds of farmers nationwide don't get anything. They don't live in the right places.
The comparison of the labeling them both as "farmers" is the same as a mom-and-pop grocery mart to a big box store chain. Family farms have been squeezed out of production faster the disappearing middleclass! Then the former unsubsidized farmer gets to weigh his options of working for a factory farm outfit or join the work force he or she hasn't been a part of.
China imported “Organics” are scarier than the metal used in toys and paint. I am so frustrated that I want 40 acres to retreat to and try self sustainable agriculture as a virtual hermit, but my wife likes the conveniences of store bought soap and the occasional delivered pizza.
It's called, 'planting boxes'. You don't even need to go store-bought on this, you can basically go get yourself some lumber, some nails, 3-4 bags of potting soil, several various types of seeds, ye bucket of water from the sink, a garden spade(or your hands, whichever), and if you do it right, pretty soon you'll produce your very own 'produce' there, depending on how ambitious you wanna get and how much space you got, you could have all KINDS of free veggies, no $4/gal store trips required. Put your Farmer Bob hat on, and put these clowns back on the SHELF.
Think about it. Inventors could invent, people could buy food and not worry about paying the 2-3 times more it would cost without subsidies to hold down prices, people could start businesses, and buy all the plasma screens and 24 inch rims they want (sarcasm).
Seriously, wouldn't allowing all of us to have our money back, be the best thing for everyone?
Then, we wouldn't have to worry about which farmers, which pet projects, which earmarks were the worst.
For details, look here http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/051908a.html