Posted on 06/26/2012 10:13:13 AM PDT by 92nina
To the disappointment of those who wanted to see reform and fiscal responsibility prevail, Debbie Stabenow’s (D-Mich.) farm bill passed in the Senate on Thursday with a vote of 64-35. The proposed bill fails to reform certain programs like sugar, makes other wasteful programs like dairy even worse, and creates a whole new entitlement program for farmers, while spending 60 percent more than the last farm bill and only cutting a paltry $23 billion from the deficit over the next ten years. This farm bill will leave a wide path of destruction behind it: consumer prices will increase, costly entitlement programs will bloat, and market distortions will continue to run wild.
Americans for Tax Reform and numerous other organizations called for actual reform and spending cuts that would shrink government’s involvement in agriculture and chip away at our country’s massive deficit.
After hundreds of amendments were put forward, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid allowed for a bundle of 73 to be voted on for the past 3 days in the Senate. Unsurprisingly, most of the best, free-market oriented amendments failed. Americans for Tax Reform highlighted some amendments that would attempt to correct some of the atrocities of the bill. The Lee Motion to Recommit, for example, would save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars by returning the current farm bill (which spends $969 billion) to 2008 spending levels (which spent about $600 billion). This amendment was unfortunately rejected. The Toomey Amendment, that would have brought much needed free-market reform to sugar programs, was also rejected.
However, showing some of the hoped for reform, an amendment by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) passed that will means test crop insurance premium subsidies. The amendment, which reduced subsidies by 15 percent for farmers with an adjusted gross income of more than $750,000, garnered 66 votes. Showing their support for crony capitalism and a reluctance to cut spending, Sen. Stabenow and two-thirds of her Senate Agriculture Committee members voted against the amendment.
Senator Stabenow said, “This Farm Bill is unlike any other before it—it cuts spending, ends subsidies, improves accountability and strengthens healthy food systems. We are now closer than ever to achieving real reform in America’s agriculture policy.” This is false rhetoric. The trillion-dollar farm bill spends 60 percent more than its predecessor, enacts a new subsidy entitlement program for agri-business, and lacks any real reform. Programs that needed complete overhaul were left alone and amendments that could have corrected these oversights were struck down.
Read more: http://atr.org/farm-bill-over-regulation-strikes-again-a6991#ixzz1yv7ZCdT0
What began with good ideas had mission creep. At one time we would carry over half to a full year of production through commodity loans, it was called the reserve program. Now if we don't use up the last bushel of it on the day the new crop comes in it is a disaster. The GOAL is to carry over no new crop. Do you see the disaster coming?
We haven’t had a good drought in Iowa for several years, LUCK or MGT? When my parents farmed, it was more years of bad crop than good.
Look, I can joke about farmer welfare all day long; but you're not a thief if someone's giving you the money. The farmers don't steal it.
Congress is the thief. Important distinction. Direct your anger where it's due.
As the result of the great depression, programs were implemented to carry a reserve and store the grain on the farm, THE GOAL BEING A HEALTHY RESERVE.
WWII came along and the GOAL WAS MAXIMUM PRODUCTION.
After the war we had a lot people to feed and didn't worry about the reserve. THE GOAL WAS FEED THE WORLD.
The 60 came along and the reserve began to get quite large and expensive so the GOAL WAS LIMIT PRODUCTION and thus paying farmers NOT to grow crops.
The 70’s and Carter came along to eliminate exports and the reserve really grew, so we paid some farmers to bid in their whole farm and grow NOTHING. By the way those were not very profitable years because the farmer had more time to spend money and made some not so good decisions. We always manage the past and this is the image you are objecting to.
In the 80’s direct payments to farmers was HUGE, cant have that to THE GOAL BECAME TO ELIMINATE DIRECT PAYMENTS TO FARMERS. Thus through lobbying the idea of crop insurance grew and we won't have to pay the farmers, but we will subsidize the corp insurance for a few years. Well, 20 years later we are still subsidizing crop insurance and have driven the small farmers out because the big operations grew because they had no risk.
The morel of the story: the original goal was a GOOD ONE but we are so far away from that we have a good opportunity to starve.
You bring up some very good points. Unfortunately no matter how well intentioned, subsidies take money from one person and give it to another, and there’s no basis for them in the Constitution. The Depression was a giant debacle and people look at it far differently, depending on whether they were the moochers or the moochees.
Both my parents come from farming stock, and different sides of the country. Dad was around for the depression, mom a little after, but her mother and grandmother often spoke of the depression. Ergo, I have no first hand experience, but both sides of my family hated the policies instituted during the Depression (Dad is conservative, mom’s mom is an old school Democrat, more conservative than most Republicans, but somewhat liberal).
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RE: “We haven’t had a good drought in Iowa for several years, LUCK or MGT? When my parents farmed, it was more years of bad crop than good.”
It may be neither, directly. “Geoengineering” as they call it, is widely practiced. Here in the local paper this spring, there was a report of how much our agricultural county, and the next county over, budget for cloud seeding (altering weather to make rain, if you didn’t know), as well as how much the state kicks in. In all the amount we paid was IIRC around 300k each year (75k from each county, and the other 150k from the state). Ironically last year this area was considered a FEMA flood zone, and a few people’s homes were damaged. The paper also mentioned that the clouds are seeded each and every year, regardless of precipitation, I guess just in case. Makes me wonder why the clouds had to be seeded (at our expense) last year in the first place.
Oh, I’ll go out on a limb here. In as much as you don’t know a thing about farming, I’ll guess you’re not a farmer.
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