Free Republic

SNIP The onslaught began over the weekend, a week after 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered the Democrats' weekly radio address with a plea to Bush to sign the bill. A contributor to the conservative Web site Free Republic noted Graeme's enrollment in the private Park School and the sale of a smaller rowhouse on the Frosts' block for $485,000 this year and questioned whether the family should be taking advantage of the state program. SNIP The Frosts say the description of their family's circumstances now circulating is misleading. Halsey, they say, is a self-employed woodworker - he has no employees -...

NEVADA, Iowa - Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson acknowledged Wednesday that he's reversed his position on ethanol subsidies, saying his new stand is based on changes in energy prices and security issues. Thompson spoke about the issue after touring an ethanol plant, one of dozens in Iowa, which leads the nation in ethanol production. The actor and former Tennessee senator was finishing a five-day trip to the state, where precinct caucuses begin the presidential nominating process. Meeting with reporters, Thompson acknowledged that he had switched his position on subsidies for ethanol. "I have voted against subsidies in the Senate," said...

Economics: President Bush has signed a student loan bill that's being hailed as much-needed assistance for current and prospective college students. It looks like they caught a break — but only if they don't look too close. The College Cost Reduction and Access Act expands financial aid by $20 billion, including federal grant increases. It eventually will cut the 6.8% interest rate on federally subsidized loans to 3.4% by July 1, 2011; set annual loan payments at 15% of what Washington considers the discretionary income of students who go into low-paying jobs; and forgive the debts of those workers who...

With all the madness in the world, I meditated Tuesday on two matters of great gratitude. One is that through vigilance and good fortune we have, so far, gone six years without another major attack on U.S. soil. The other is that I wasn't one of the Texas officials who was forced to attend a workshop in Austin in which PR flacks would try (under a $20,000 contract) to teach me techniques for selling Gov. Perry's massive toll road boondoggle. It was a small part of a $7 million to $9 million campaign that will include feel-good ads pushing Perry's...

Governments need to scrap subsidies for biofuels, as the current rush to support alternative energy sources will lead to surging food prices and the potential destruction of natural habitats, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will warn on Tuesday. The OECD will say in a report to be discussed by ministers on Tuesday that politicians are rigging the market in favour of an untried technology that will have only limited impact on climate change. “The current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant environmental benefits,” say the authors...

On an average weekday, full-time university and college students spent 3.2 hours engaged in educational activities [including class time], 2.8 hours working, 8.4 hours sleeping, and spent 3.9 hours in leisure and sports activities. (These data are four-year averages for 2003 to 2006).

By now you've probably heard that a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report states: From 1999 through 2005, the USDA "paid $1.1 billion in farm payments in the names of 172,801 deceased individuals. ... 40 percent went to those who had been dead for three or more years, and 19 percent to those dead for seven or more years." One dead farmer got more than $400,000 during those years. And they say you can't take it with you. Defending the USDA, the GAO adds, "The complex nature of some farming operations -- such as entities embedded within other entities --...

from http://www.american.com/archive/2007/august-0807/backing-back-to-school Backing 'Back to School' By Phil Brand Congressional subsidies for college tuition encourage students to over-consume. In a few weeks more than 17 million students will head begin or continue pursuing higher education in over 4,200 degree-granting American colleges and universities. For the school year they will pay on average more than $12,000 for tuition, room and board at four-year public schools and more than $30,000 for an education at a private college or university. Many of these students will graduate—eventually. But many others will not. Is their struggle to earn a college degree worth it? Not everyone...

We in the Land of Lincoln have many matters about which to fret. Will the budget impasse between the Democratic governor and the Democratic General Assembly get resolved? Will Illinois ever join the 48 states that permit concealed carrying of weapons, thereby giving law-abiding citizens a fighting chance against the bad guys? What week of September (or possibly August) will the Cubs choke this year? Will Gov. Milorad Blagojevich try sticking taxpayers with another $600 makeup bill? There’s so very much for us to ponder. Happily, we don’t have to worry if our fair state is getting its “fair share”...

While the TV cameras and newspaper headlines have been focused on the Senate's struggle with high-profile immigration issues, a less-visible drama has been unfolding on Capitol Hill that also provides a clear test of whether the 110th Congress is capable of producing good public policy. The farm bill, which governs a wide range of federal programs from farm subsidies to food stamps, is being rewritten this year. Previous farm bills, especially the 2002 version, are noted for their smoke-and-mirror rhetoric, fancy procedural footwork and bipartisan lack of political courage. So far, this year's farm-bill drama appears to be no exception...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reportedly distributed $1.1 billion to estates or companies of deceased farmers from 1999 to 2005. The USDA routinely neglected to conduct required reviews to make sure payments were properly disbursed, The Washington Post reported Monday

Every five to seven years Congress grapples with sweeping legislation that is commonly called "the farm bill." But that simple name belies the complexity of the bill, which is broken into 10 sections that extend well beyond mere subsidies for farmers—the most controversial and perennially debated initiative in the bill. These categories, or "titles," also include energy, trade, conservation, nutrition and rural development, in addition to agricultural commodities. With so much covered in the farm bill, a variety and multitude of interests are flocking to Capitol Hill to make sure they receive a bite of the money allocated for the...

<p>More than a quarter million black and Hispanic families are expected to lose their homes in the next few years due to foreclosure. For many, the financial trouble will be traceable to a mortgage they should never have been given.</p>

An enduring myth about farm subsidies is that they go to needy family farms. But in reality, price supports have accelerated the demise of small farms because the benefits go to the most profitable growers, says the Wall Street Journal. According to Citizens Against Government Waste: -- Three-quarters of the payments under the 2002 farm bill have gone to the richest 10 percent of farmers. -- More than half of the $1.9 billion sugar program lines the pockets of the wealthiest 1 percent of plantation owners. -- In 2003 the biggest single recipient of farm aid was Riceland Foods in...

PARIS -- Two French senators on Wednesday blamed the woes at Airbus' parent company on bad management and recommended a bigger role for French and German governments in decision-making.The findings in a report by French senators Jean-Francois Le Grand and Roland Ries, who have been investigating the company for six months, faulted national rivalries, a clumsy management structure, lack of surveillance by shareholders DaimlerChrysler AG and Lagardere Groupe SCA, and too much autonomy at the plane maker for problems with the superjumbo A380. "The A380 was a catastrophe, both industrially and commercially," Ries said in an interview after the report's...

<p>PHILOMATH, Ore. -- Since the early 1960s, a foundation created by a wealthy couple named Rex and Ethel Clemens has fulfilled an extraordinary promise: college scholarships for any Philomath High School graduate who resides in this faded logging town.</p> <p>The promise has broadened the horizons of Philomath's sons and daughters, helping to lift the local college-attendance rate, from next to nothing to about 69%. Over the years, the foundation has paid $15.5 million in tuition. Right now, 520 students are on its rolls.</p>

Imagine a line composed of every household with children in the United States, arranged from lowest to highest income. Now, divide the line into five equal parts. Which of the groups do you think enjoyed big increases in income since 1991? If you read the papers, you probably would assume that the bottom fifth did the worst. After all, income inequality in America is increasing, right? Wrong. According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study released this month, the bottom fifth of families with children, whose average income in 2005 was $16,800, enjoyed a larger percentage increase in income from...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- Legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate this week would entice farmers located near ethanol biorefineries to grow dedicated energy crops. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said his bill would offer incentives to farmers who plant switchgrass, fast-growing trees and other cellulosic feedstocks and deliver them to the nation's next generation of ethanol plants. Cellulose is the woody material in branches and stems that makes plants hard. "For cellulosic to achieve its potential, Congress needs to help this industry overcome some of the initial market barriers," Thune said Wednesday during a conference call. "And if we are...

If California wants to achieve its goal of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 25 percent by 2020 to fight global warming, it must find a way to cut down the biggest source of those pollutants: cars, trucks and other motor vehicles. Even though transportation contributes 41 percent of greenhouse gases, our society is too geographically dispersed and mobile to realistically expect that we can dramatically reduce the number of miles we drive, ride and fly. So that means our vehicles need to become far more fuel-efficient. The less gasoline per mile that a car uses, the less heat-trapping carbon dioxide it spews...

If anything has approximated unanimity in the 80th Texas Legislature, it is the desire to slow down on toll roads. This has left the state’s biggest proponent of toll roads, Gov. Rick Perry, the odd man out. But he’s still the man with the veto pen. The House and Senate last week overwhelmingly approved a two-year moratorium on most toll roads, including the Trans-Texas Corridor. Lawmakers earlier sent a bill to Perry with toll-road restrictions. He vetoed it, and threatened a special session if he didn’t get a bill he could sign. The bill that emerged reportedly meets his terms....

Congress is fundamentally a gathering of horse-traders, and the body always seems to find a way to put pork into its already-lavish spending bills. When recent reports revealed that the supplemental spending bills for Iraq contained funding for peanut storage and spinach growers, Congress finally caved—apparently that was a bridge too far. But that won’t be the last we hear from farm commodity groups this year. The current farm bill, a multi-year spending program for commodity and rural programs, is due for renewal in September, and Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns is causing a stir by becoming the first ag...

Sarkozy faces 'grapes of wrath' terror threat WILLIAM LYONSWINE CORRESPONDENT (wlyons@scotlandonsunday.com) HIS promises to shake up France's labour force, abolish its 35-hour working week and enact tougher measures on crime and immigration have outraged many of his compatriots. But now Nicolas Sarkozy has found an unlikely enemy in France's vignerons, who are promising an al Qaeda-style campaign of violence if the new French president does not help the country's struggling wine industry.

House Transportation Ranking Member John Mica (R-Fla.) last week renewed his attacks against the Airbus A380, claiming a new government report proves that the A380 will disrupt operations at U.S. airports -- an interpretation disputed by Airbus. Referring to results of a Government Accountability Office report, Mica asserts that "aviation safety and capacity may be adversely affected by this enormous plane, further taxing an already strained U.S. aviation system." A380 operations will cause "reduced throughput and capacity constraints" at airports, Mica said. The GAO study was requested by Mica. Last year, Mica launched similar criticism of the A380. He cited...

A few weeks ago, the Phoenix City Council agreed to give Thomas J. Klutznick Co. $100 million for building a high-end shopping center. Backers of the deal say failure to subsidize retail would send developers to other cities or to Arizona’s Indian reservations. With a total sales tax of 8.1 percent, Phoenix has the highest sales tax rate of competitor cities. It may very well be true that Phoenix is losing business to neighboring cities. Poor tax policy has that effect. If taxes are stifling new business, the city should lower rates across the board. But tax deals for select...

Many Democrats and some Republicans applauded President Bush's State-of-the-Union proposal for a 20% reduction in gasoline use over the next 10 years, largely through greater reliance on ethanol. Bush's idea, however, is adding corn-based fuel to protests in Mexico City. Existing federal laws that mandate ethanol in U.S. gasoline have diverted trainloads of corn from America's food supply-chain to ethanol factories. This boosted U.S. corn prices nearly 80% in 2006. That's bad enough if you buy corn on the cob for a weekend barbecue. But it's much worse if you are a poor Mexican surviving on corn tortillas. A kilo...

Cellular subscribers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars each year to subsidize land-line telephone service, enriching big telecommunications companies while providing little or no benefit to cell-phone users. The subsidies are intended to reimburse the companies for providing traditional phone service in rough terrain and rural areas where stringing lines can be costly. But rampant development has transformed some of these backwaters into booming subdivisions, with no real adjustment to the distribution formula; others, such as the oceanfront celebrity playground of Malibu, are receiving subsidies simply because of their difficult topography. Outdated formulas for tabulating the surcharges -- coupled...

Let's stop pretending and renationalise Airbus By Paul Betts Published: February 2 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 2 2007 02:00 Boeing - as the results it reported this week show - is reaping the rewards of the radical restructuring it undertook six years ago when it was in trouble. The US aerospace group closed several plants, outsourced as much work as possible, intensified the involvement of risk-sharing partners in its main programmes, and cut 30,000 jobs.It is now the turn of its European rival Airbus to be in a mess.The European manufacturer and its parent EADS are struggling...

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of the richest farmers would lose their government subsidies under a Bush administration plan to curb spending. Proposals released Wednesday would reduce agriculture spending by $18 billion over the next five years. They represent President Bush's vision of a new farm bill: a system of supports that would protect farm income and crop prices and keep food prices stable. Anyone making more than $200,000 in adjusted gross income would be cut off from farm payments under Bush's plan. At that level, "you're the richest guy in the county," Deputy Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner said. These producers, about...

President Bush's State of the Union address, which called for a nearly fivefold increase in the nation's alternative-fuel consumption by 2017, did little to silence critics who contend that new fuels like ethanol and biodiesel aren't likely to play a major role supplying the world's energy needs in the years ahead. They see two key problems. First, the profitability of many alternative fuels -- without sizable subsidies -- is still in question. This is especially true now that the cost of raw ingredients used to produce "biofuel," including corn, has rocketed, squeezing profit margins for producers of those fuels. At...

President Bush last week called on the nation to invest in new technology to reduce dependence on foreign oil. The president set specific targets for the U.S., calling for a 20% reduction in gasoline use over the next 10 years. He said that a boost in the use of alternative fuels such as ethanol would account for most of that reduction, cutting gasoline use by 15%. Stricter gas-mileage standards for vehicles, he said, should lead to the other 5% reduction. The president also proposed doubling the nation's strategic-petroleum reserves to hedge against oil-supply interruptions. Increased calls for energy independence come...

WASHINGTON -- The fuel ethanol boom and high crop prices will cut U.S. farm subsidy spending by $31 billion through 2016, a dramatic drop in the cost of the farm program, the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday. In a semiannual report, CBO estimated farm subsidies would cost $10 billion this year and the annual cost "will range between $8 billion and $10 billion over the next decade." The forecasts are expected to constrain this year's overhaul of farm policy by Congress. The 2002 farm law, which allocates about $20 billion a year on farm supports, expires in the fall....

DETROIT -- The Big Three auto makers have asked the federal government to spend roughly $500 million over five years to subsidize the development of advanced batteries required to power future vehicles such as the electric prototype generating buzz for General Motors Corp. In a follow-up to a November meeting between President Bush and their chief executives, GM, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group last month submitted a white paper to a White House technology adviser saying the U.S. is trailing Japan in development of batteries for fuel-efficient automobiles and could suffer economically if the government doesn't help...

The federal government instituted crop insurance in 1938 in an attempt to end the need for ad hoc aid to farmers following disastrous droughts or floods. But ad hoc aid has not ended in the past seven decades, and the insurance program that was intended to replace it has transformed into a massive, poorly disguised crop subsidy program that provides few benefits to farmers who practice good risk management. Instead, the program rewards poor risk managers with generous subsidies at the expense of taxpayers, contrary to the fundamental principles of insurance. To be sure, lawmakers have made several efforts to...

Chugging along to the show’s close, anchor Dan Harris ended the January 7 “World News Sunday” by introducing correspondent Bill Redeker’s wistful story of how first-class travel on the nation’s railways might “become a thing of the past,” thanks to federal budget cuts. Yet Redeker left Amtrak’s critics at the station, ignoring its massive costs to taxpayers who aren’t even riding the trains. Splicing his report with dining car scenes from “Silver Streak” and “North by Northwest,” Redeker complained that Amtrak had to skimp on china, stemware and tablecloths to meet budget cutbacks on its California Zephyr rail line. “It’s...

WASHINGTON -- With Democrats controlling Congress, the oil industry is in for a rough ride. So is the agency that collects royalties for oil and gas drilling on federal lands. Democrats and some Republicans have complained for months that the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service -- whose motto is "securing ocean energy and economic value for America" -- has mishandled the royalty program. The issue will hit the spotlight Jan. 18, when the House takes up energy legislation targeting oil-industry subsidies. One goal: untangling a legal mess that could allow companies to escape paying at least $10 billion in future...

100 Hours: Honest Leadership and Open Government John Samples, director of Cato's Center for Representative Government and author of The Fallacy Of Campaign Finance Reform: The ethics part of this agenda evokes a limited sense of déjà vu. On their first day in power in 1995, the House Republicans cut House staff, changed budgeting rules, enacted term limits for their leadership, banned proxy voting in committee, opened committee hearings to the public, required a three-fifths vote to increase taxes, started a comprehensive audit of the House, and applied anti-discrimination and workplace safety rules to Congress itself. Later they passed...

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. — For decades, the fiercely independent fruit and vegetable growers of California, Florida and other states have been the only farmers in America who shunned federal subsidies, delivering produce to the tables of millions of Americans on their own. But now, in the face of tough new competition primarily from China, even these proud groups are buckling. Produce farmers, their hands newly outstretched, have joined forces for the first time, forming a lobby group intended to pressure politicians over the farm bill to be debated in Congress in January. Nobody disputes that competitive pressures from abroad are...

Is the Federal Government buying shares in airbus-mother's group EADS? Today mayor of Hamburg Beust informed: "It's a fact that shares will be bought". However, after a little while Federal Chancellor Merkel contradicted him: "The decision has not dripped yet." Hamburg - The Federal Government is buying shares according to mayor of Hamburg Ole from Beust (CDP) in EADS. "The fact that will be bought, is certain ", said Beust after a conversation with new airbus boss Louis Gallois. However, details would still have to be cleared.

Farmers may seem like trustworthy people, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture is taking no chances. It's spending tens of millions of dollars to create an enormous computerized map of every farmer's field in America. The program is intended to make sure farmers are doing what's required to earn their government subsidies. It's an enormous task, keeping track of those subsidies. They add up to billions of dollars each year and they go to more than half a million farmers, scattered from Maine to California. Some farmers receive payments for protecting streams and wetlands; others, for growing specific crops. In...

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) and fellow reformers on Capitol Hill have so far met with limited success in their efforts to cut government waste, but they have garnered a lot of attention from popular websites and blogs. And that's about to become the basis of their strategy. Mr. Coburn has proposed a bill to create an Internet database that would track hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts, grants, and other payments.

The effort to make cellulosic ethanol into a full-blown power source to run America's cars is embryonic, and its outcome uncertain. But the fuel has two big things going for it: High oil prices and backing from the Bush administration, which sees it as a potentially important part of future energy supplies and is putting up money to help launch the first "biorefineries" to make it. Adherents think it could reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil, cut emissions that cause global warming and shore up the nation's rural economy. Already, the race is attracting big names, with the likes of...

(NOTE: Online version not available) Jim Salenski is a dairy farmer about 8 miles from the [Catholic] church in Rugby, [North Dakota]. He echoes a complaint heard from coast to coast that the federal government’s farm subsidy program is driving small farmers out of business. Studies show that as much as three-quarters of the federal support goes to the top 10 percent of the producers, which include Fortune 500 companies, celebrities, and other “hobby farmer” investors. “The more you farm, the more you get,” Salenski sums up the government policy. His German-Russian parents bought the farm in 1932. Jim, the...

EL CAMPO, Tex. -- Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years. Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual "direct payments," because years ago the land was used to grow rice. Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do...

The work of harvesting sugarcane is grueling - even worse than picking cotton. With a knife, a cutter slices the cane stalk as close to the ground as possible. Standing in wet, soft muck soil, he chops off the leaves and the top of the stalk, tossing the cane into a pile. He does this thousands of times a day - stooping, cutting, standing, cutting, stacking, stooping. To guard against the sharp leaves and the swinging knife, cutters wear aluminum shields on their wrists and legs, as well as many layers, even in the hot Florida sun. Given those conditions,...

A Canadian company has developed a new, more efficient process to make the alternative fuel ethanol from farm waste. With today's high oil prices, experts hope the new technology could reduce demand on fossil fuels and increase energy security. "In the past, ethanol fuel use has been limited, because the cost of production was too high," said Jim Easterly, a Washington, D.C.-based bioenergy consultant. "Ethanol produced from corn kernels and wheat grain has historically been more expensive than gasoline produced from oil." Producing corn-based ethanol, for example, uses energy from oil and electricity for everything from growing the corn to...

BERLIN -- Airbus expects to decide before July on the final design of its A350 airliner, parent company EADS said Tuesday as it reported a 26 percent rise in first quarter net profit. Airbus is considering significant modifications to the wide-body A350, its planned rival to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, after criticism from airlines and jet leasing companies. The A350, which has lagged in sales, would have a new wing and new engines, but not a new and wider fuselage like the 787. Some customers, notably Singapore Airlines and International Lease Finance Corp., have said Airbus should look at an...

WASHINGTON - When the Senate approved a $109 billion spending bill on Thursday to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, senators voted to give Gary Pestorious some gas money, too. Pestorious, who owns Sunset Farms of Freeborn County in southern Minnesota, would get $48,304 to help with rising energy costs under a bill that would give $92.9 million to 49,560 Minnesota farms -- an average of $1,875 each.

" ... 'embedded in the legislation to finalize the switch to DTV is a $1.5 billion fund to subsidize the purchase of these devices' ... The crux of the debate lies in the question of how much power we are willing to grant our elected officials ... " Excerpt from Nadd.com.

Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren are senior fellows. Peter VanDoren is also editor of Cato's Regulation magazine. To the casual observer, one of the most striking things about President Bush’s State of the Union address on Tuesday was his wholesale adaptation of the Democratic party’s rhetoric regarding energy. Vowing to “move beyond a petroleum-based economy,” after all, is heady stuff and the sine qua non of the environmental Left. Careful viewers, however, will note that the energy initiatives forwarded in the speech amounted to little more than modest increases in the amount of money already going to programs in...

Last November, the top floor at Ford in a speech called for government backing for the industry, which obviously of late seems to be in a bit of a financial pickle...Should government do that sort of thing?..Well, government already does that sort of thing, and with the exception of one area, shouldn't.....[more]