[1rudeboy]

Found this through the Heritage website. Governmental policy always has unintended consequences . . . if you are interested in more about the same, try Big Shrimp: A Protectionist Mess.

[Toddsterpatriot]

But Willie Green says subsidies make our sugar cheaper.

[Protagoras]

The government should stick to defending the rights of the citizens and stop interfering in businesses of any kind.

[martin_fierro]

Your thoughts, please.

[Mase]

"” Since farming households in general have higher incomes, greater wealth and lower consumption expenditures than most households, this creates a perverse anti-Robin Hood effect: The poor (relatively speaking) are being robbed to pay the rich."
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It will be interesting to follow this thread to see if any of the crowd who believes the American farmer cannot compete anymore and is living on the edge of financial ruin will, finally, offer some evidence to refute the Heritage Foundation's claim.

[curlewbird]

Get rid of the Chicago Board of Trade and the speculators in the market and you won't need gov. payments. As long as the producers can't set the prices they need for their crops, they most likely aren't going to be profitable.

[bahblahbah]

Bush's proposal will do nothing to hurt 99% of the family farms.

[junta]

Harangue the farmers if you must, but these bills ought to be labled, "Save the Farmland Banking Industry." In my No. Illinois area family corparations have led the farm consolidation and they have done it with the help of institutions willing to lend money rather freely. Take away the government juice and we will need John "Cougar" to do his first Bank Aid concert.

[followerofchrist]

Whatever the case, farmers in my neck of the woods are selling prime ag land to developers. Unfair trade practices undercut U.S. farmers. That's an issue.

[The Great RJ]

Where do I sign up to get paid $12 so I don't have to mow my lawn?

[sdpatriot]

here's an interesting article i found posted at a ag forum i read at. it's about the success of getting rid of gvt subsidies, in of all places - New Zealand.


http://www.agritech.org.nz/subsidy.shtml

Subsidy-free and profitable agriculture

Farmers in most countries continue to face radical change, through the reduction or elimination of government subsidies, driven by the need to reform world trade within agricultural products. Farmers fear for the future of those who work on the land, their families, and for the rural communities. They fear the long-term destruction of the traditional farming systems and the rural way of life.

Yet the truth is quite different, and for family farming there is life after subsidies. Indeed, life after subsidies is better than farming that is dependent upon state handouts.

(continued at link)