Farm Bill Bottom Feeder Program Must Be Stopped

Townhall.com ^ | November 24, 2013 | David Williams

[Iron Munro]

Congress gets worse every year.

They live like royalty on money they are stealing from our grandchildren.

[SkyPilot]

Support Grows In House to Save Food Stamps by Killing Farm Bill

"Congress is getting ready to pass a farm bill—the $500 billion piece of legislation that funds agriculture and nutrition programs—that will cut funding for food stamps. As Mother Jones reported last week, Democrats in the House are considering banding together to derail the bill entirely, thus preserving nutrition funding at its current level. Support for that idea is building. House Democrats wager that if enough House Republicans vote against a final farm bill because they think the food stamps cuts are not deep enough, only a small group of Dems will need to also vote against the bill in order to kill it. In this case, food stamps would continue to be funded at current levels.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

“For example, Congress once earmarked $50,000 in taxpayer money to support a museum honoring mules? “

That’s actually a museum I’d like to see.

[smoothsailing]

Something about this story sounds fishy.

[andyk]

So if we dont pass a bill funding food stamps, food stamps continue to be funded?

[SatinDoll]

Yes, I agree about the museum on mules.

The majority of people today do not know that before mechanized farming, mammoth mules were the muscles that planted crops and brought in the harvest.

[andyk]

Hehehe

[SatinDoll]

Yep. Glad I’m not the only one to recognize this is fishy.

A huge number of Congressional members own farms that receive money from agriculture bills. They are, in essence, paying themselves.

[Jack Hydrazine]

How about stopping farmers from being paid NOT to plant crops?

[GreyFriar]

A museum for mules is fine with me as it will have nothing but 4 legged critters. If it were a museum for Jack-asses, it would be filled with nothing but pictures of members of congress

[digger48]

they sure expected a lot out of these guys....

[digger48]

where does this happen?

Around here, they’re not only planting every tillable inch, they’re knocking down the few remaining woods to grow even more.

The only “setaside” that some of them apply for, is the filter strip along ditches that helps keep their precious topsoil for heading to New Orleans.

Many counties are making them mandatory, whether you’re in the program or not

[Jack Hydrazine]

Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don’t Farm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100962.html

More Farmers Paid Not To Farm Land
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org/more-farmers-paid-not-to-farm-land-wednesday-waste/#.UpKb8uKPwSo

Why do we pay farmers not to grow food?
http://campusbrownie.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/why-do-we-pay-farmers-not-to-grow-food/

[SatinDoll]

I noticed the three cables or chains keeping the logs in place, which may or may not actually work. That guy on the very top of the logs is risking his life.

Where I live, in southwest Washington State, is timber country, mostly of harvested Douglas Fir shipped to Asia. More that one log truck has lost a load on the 2-lane roads around where I live, and those logs have crushed to death the vehicle behind the truck. Yes, the logs are restrained by cables or chains, but when a load shifts - lookout!

I suspect the horses in this photograph may have been harnessed just for the photograph. If you noticed, there is a log in the snow concealing the platform. Could be train wheels or sled runners, as there is snow on the ground. There are abandoned tracks in the woods out beyond where I live. Finding them is a good source of money for metal scroungers.

The city of Astoria, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River, was incorporated in 1812. Mainly at first a port for Hudson Bay Company to ship out furs, once the USA had possession it became a major source of lumber for the growing cities of California.

Old San Francisco (pre-1916) was built with wood from Oregon and Washington states. It was cheaper logistically to harvest fir there and ship them south to San Francisco rather than harvest in the Sierras and try to get it down the Sacramento River.

[SkyPilot]

That looks like the outcome: 2014 Farm Bill contains language that would FINALLY brings some much needed reductions to the Food Stamps EBT scam). If they defeat the bill, then Congress goes along with last year’s funding, thus eliminating even one dime in cuts.

[Elsie]

The majority of people today do not know that before mechanized farming, mammoth mules were the muscles that planted crops and brought in the harvest. much of ANYthing!!

[Elsie]

I noticed the three cables or chains keeping the logs in place, which may or may not actually work.

IF there are no chains connecting between the sides of this stack; then the whole mess is going to shift into a circular pile of logs; a lot lower and a log wider!

[digger48]

Thanks for the links.

But I stand by the statement that, around here, in some of the most valuable farmland in the country, that simply not the case.

I’ve worked with farmers for 40 years. I recognize many of the top Subsidy recipients in surrounding counties and have done work for them.

For the most part, these guys farm for a living and they farm every inch they can. But they also are not going to pass up the opportunities that the Government throws at them to make an extra buck.

That’s why we’re now having to fight these same farmers for taking lease money from Big Blow to cover our county in 500 foot tall Industrial Wind Turbines. (Also taxpayer subsidized)

So, to me, it’s a double edge sword. Our family business has benefitted from from those subsidies as 99% of our income is ultimately paid by farmers

[Elsie]

NO stamps - stop the whole thing and install a soup kitchen in every 'poor' neighborhood block.

The 'poor' folks can run them and learn a trade at the same time.

A walk down to the corner is not going to wear anyone out.