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Welfare Kings On Tractors

Mike

Well-known member
Welfare kings on tractors
http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2006/08/05/welfare_kings_on_tractors ^


For the fifth summer in six years, I'm driving across the country. Aside from the country's immense beauty, the decency of its people and the impossibility of finding a good cup of coffee near the interstate, one of the things you start to appreciate when you've seen a lot of America is how sparsely populated it is in the middle. It seems the welfare recipients need a lot of room.

I'm referring, of course, to American farmers. Or, more precisely, American farm owners, a.k.a. Welfare Kings.

There are few issues for which the political consensus is so distant from both common sense and expert opinion. Right-wing economists, left-wing environmentalists and almost anybody in between who doesn't receive a check from the Department of Agriculture or depend on a political donation from said recipients understand that Americans are spending billions to prop up the last of the horse-and-buggy industries.

At this nation's founding, nearly nine out of 10 workers were employed in agriculture. By 1900 it was fewer than four in 10. Today, fewer than one in every 100 workers is in agriculture, and less than 1 percent of gross domestic product is attributable to agriculture. Yet America spends billions of dollars subsidizing a system that makes almost everyone in the world worse off.

Our system is so complicated - i.e. rigged - that it's almost impossible to know how much agricultural subsidies cost U.S. taxpayers. But we know from the Washington Post's recent reporting that since 2000, the U.S. government paid out $1.3 billion to "farmers" who don't farm. They were simply compensated for owning land previously used for farming. A Houston surgeon received nearly $500,000 for, literally, nothing. Cash payments have cost $172 billion over the last decade, and $25 billion in 2005 alone, nearly 50 percent more than what was paid to families receiving welfare.

But those sorts of numbers barely tell the story of our appallingly immoral agricultural corporatism. Subsidies combined with trade barriers (another term for subsidy) prop up the price of agricultural commodities for consumers at home while hurting farmers abroad. This is repugnant because agriculture is a keystone industry for developing nations and a luxury for developed ones. Hence we keep Third World nations impoverished, economically dependent and politically unstable. Our farm subsidies alone - forget trade barriers - cost developing countries $24 billion every year, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis. Letting poor nations prosper would be worth a lot more than the equivalent amount in foreign aid. But Big Agriculture likes foreign aid because it allows for the dumping of wheat and other crops on the world market, perpetuating the cycle of dependency.

Then, of course, there's the environment. Subsidies savage the ecosystem. One example: There's a 6,000-square-mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, larger than Connecticut. It's so depleted of oxygen from algae blooms caused by fertilizer runoff that the shrimp and crabs at the Louisiana shore literally try to leap from the water to breathe, imperiling the profitable Gulf fishing industry. Most of the fertilizer comes from a few Midwestern counties that receive billions in subsidies (more than $30 billion from 1997 to 2002, according to the Environmental Working Group).

The full environmental costs are incalculable. If global warming concerns you, consider that American farming is hugely energy intensive. Those energy costs are offset by Uncle Sam, so taxpayers are buying greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, across the U.S., swaths of forests and wetlands have been cleared or drained to make room for farmland that would never earn a buck if not for welfare support. Who knows how much cleaner the air and water would be with those resources intact? And who knows how many more dubious "wetlands" would be free for productive economic development?

There's a lot of romance about the family farm in this country. But that's what it is: romance. Most of the Welfare Kings are rich men - buffalo farmer and CNN founder Ted Turner is one of the biggest. Of course, there are small farmers out there, but they have no more right to live off the government teat than the corner bakery I so loved as a child but that couldn't keep up with the times. We don't have a political system addicted to keeping bakers rich.

Meanwhile, our system - chiefly the Senate, which gives rural states outsized power, and the Iowa presidential caucus, which forces politicians to whore themselves to agricultural welfare - is rigged to prevent real free-market reform.

I'm all in favor of farming when it's economically feasible. And while many of these folks I meet on my adventures are the salt of the earth, I don't see why they shouldn't pull their own weight.
 

Red Robin

Well-known member
:lol: Man, nice article Mike. What, are you a friend of his?

I've always thought that the Kansas tractors were a major contributor to the greenhouse gas trouble. They should be outlawed.
 

Mike

Well-known member
Red Robin said:
:lol: Man, nice article Mike. What, are you a friend of his?

I've always thought that the Kansas tractors were a major contributor to the greenhouse gas trouble. They should be outlawed.

No. I was very startled to see this article in Townhall.

The problem is with all the big guys playing the "Subsidy" game. In my opinion.

The "Cheap food" system we have has payed off well for some. :???:
 

Red Robin

Well-known member
I'm as anti subsidy as anyone drawing breath. The whole agriculture industry would be better with out any subsidy at any level I think. Having said that we are competing in a global market with all parties subsidising or tariffing. It's the nature of the business I guess and big or little I guess I'm for an even playing field. If you give it to the little man, you have to give it to riceland food.
 

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
My son started working in MT putting in pipelines and developing springs. Turns out it is 100% payed for by the government. Up here if approved we can get some help but only for a third of the cost. And it sounds as if that might quickly be coming to a end.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
I have always thought there should be an "ass requirement" in the farm bill; if it isn't your ass on the tractor seat, you don't qualify for aid.
 

Red Robin

Well-known member
I'm of the opinion any time the govt want's to regulate the price on anything (houses, money, food, etc.) they inject money into that economy and thus control the price. If we didn't have subsidies I wonder what the price would be on our commodities? We don't have anything farmed for a hundred miles or so but fescue seed so I'm probably speaking out of turn.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Red Robin said:
Sandhusker said:
I have always thought there should be an "ass requirement" in the farm bill; if it isn't your ass on the tractor seat, you don't qualify for aid.
I have two tractors.

Unless you have two asses (ex's, kids, etc.... don't count), having two tractor's doesn't count Only one check per ass/tractor.
 

Mike

Well-known member
Sandhusker said:
I have always thought there should be an "ass requirement" in the farm bill; if it isn't your ass on the tractor seat, you don't qualify for aid.

I think they limited the amount any one "Entity" could get. Check out a neighbor of mine and his different "Entities".

Over "Pick a County" click "Ownership Interests":

http://www.ewg.org/farm/persondetail.php?custnumber=009232767
 

feeder

Well-known member
I'd like to see populated America pay a fair price for their food. There always seems to be money for luxuries but they bitch if their food price goes up. Agricultural products are the biggest export America has. Many complain about the money allocated in the farm bill. Do they realize how much of that farm bill goes to food stamps, school lunches, and welfare? Those items few farmers are invloved with.
 

Red Robin

Well-known member
Sandhusker said:
Red Robin said:
Sandhusker said:
I have always thought there should be an "ass requirement" in the farm bill; if it isn't your ass on the tractor seat, you don't qualify for aid.
I have two tractors.

Unless you have two asses (ex's, kids, etc.... don't count), having two tractor's doesn't count Only one check per ass/tractor.
I don't care for anything that penalizes you for being big.
 

ranch hand

Well-known member
Big Muddy rancher said:
My son started working in MT putting in pipelines and developing springs. Turns out it is 100% payed for by the government. Up here if approved we can get some help but only for a third of the cost. And it sounds as if that might quickly be coming to a end.

Show me where. Might be if it is on BLM ground otherwise it is cost share if they ok you.
 

Bill

Well-known member
feeder said:
I'd like to see populated America pay a fair price for their food. There always seems to be money for luxuries but they bitch if their food price goes up.
Agricultural products are the biggest export America has.
Many complain about the money allocated in the farm bill. Do they realize how much of that farm bill goes to food stamps, school lunches, and welfare? Those items few farmers are invloved with.

I am curious what your source or reasoning is behind that comment?
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Bill said:
feeder said:
I'd like to see populated America pay a fair price for their food. There always seems to be money for luxuries but they bitch if their food price goes up.
Agricultural products are the biggest export America has.
Many complain about the money allocated in the farm bill. Do they realize how much of that farm bill goes to food stamps, school lunches, and welfare? Those items few farmers are invloved with.

I am curious what your source or reasoning is behind that comment?

Here is a link for the OMB estimate of costs for the programs:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/agriculture.html

Please scroll to the bottom of the page to see the outlays.
 

feeder

Well-known member
My source for stating the large exports from ag products is that I heard this on Fox news and also on two ag programs. If they reported wrong information, please excuse me for relaying the info.
 

Bill

Well-known member
My question is: When did Agricultural products become the "biggest export America has". Last I recall it was weapons and "technology", nuclear reactors and such.

I agree that few North Americans spend very much of their income on food.
 

Manitoba_Rancher

Well-known member
Feeder I agree with you. Its the same up here in Canada city folks see the govt news release that says $500 million for prairie farmers and they think well those buggers are rich and the govt is giving them more. But really how much of that $500 gets paid out to actual farmers. City folks dont understand the investment we all put into farming and ranching and the little bit we get back just so we can put food on their tables.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
ranch hand said:
Big Muddy rancher said:
My son started working in MT putting in pipelines and developing springs. Turns out it is 100% payed for by the government. Up here if approved we can get some help but only for a third of the cost. And it sounds as if that might quickly be coming to a end.

Show me where. Might be if it is on BLM ground otherwise it is cost share if they ok you.

Big Muddy- Is your kid working the Big Muddy water project-- That is a reservation project- another Indian giveaway mostly to make the tribes money off their waterrights... Elseways the only programs I know are the EQUIP programs where you almost need 2 Philadelphia attorneys and have available matching cash to qualify under most programs up here...

Nothing like the Canuck giveaways that require you to take in a Canuck partner and adopt them and provide for them- as the US has done for years :roll: :wink: :roll:
 

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
ranch hand said:
Big Muddy rancher said:
My son started working in MT putting in pipelines and developing springs. Turns out it is 100% payed for by the government. Up here if approved we can get some help but only for a third of the cost. And it sounds as if that might quickly be coming to a end.

Show me where. Might be if it is on BLM ground otherwise it is cost share if they ok you.

Big Muddy- Is your kid working the Big Muddy water project-- That is a reservation project- another Indian giveaway mostly to make the tribes money off their waterrights... Elseways the only programs I know are the EQUIP programs where you almost need 2 Philadelphia attorneys and have available matching cash to qualify under most programs up here...

Nothing like the Canuck giveaways that require you to take in a Canuck partner and adopt them and provide for them- as the US has done for years :roll: :wink: :roll:



What the HELL are you talking about?


No he is working for a contractor on private land. Says it's 100% payed for by the gov. Will have to check this out further. Not many ranchers would dig 2 miles on backhoe trench for summer water if they could plow it in would they?
 
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