Posted on 07/23/2007 8:10:41 AM PDT by george76
Legislation heavy on subsidies draws Bay Area activists' fire.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed off Friday on a five-year farm bill that would keep multibillion-dollar subsidies flowing to cotton, corn and a handful of other crops, deeply disappointing Bay Area food and environmental activists ...
Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, hailed as reform a bill that would grant subsidies to farmers earning up to $1 million -- five times more than the cap sought by the Bush administration -- while increasing actual payments to farmers. The bill comes during the most prosperous era American agriculture has seen in decades as crop prices and farm income approach or set record highs.
"Bush seems to be taking a harder stance on millionaires than the Democratic Party, which is surprising," said Kari Hamerschlag, policy director for the California Coalition for Food and Farming, a Watsonville group urging lawmakers to move money from crop subsidies to environmental and nutrition programs.
the bill leaves the big commodity programs intact for cotton, corn, wheat, rice, soybeans and a handful of other crops that have been subsidized since the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
Last year, farmers received more than $21 billion in crop subsidies...
The committee even threw in an export subsidy for tobacco.
Pelosi's prime motivation in supporting the current farm policy apparently is to preserve the re-election prospects of freshman Democrats in rural districts who toppled Republicans in November and helped secure Democrats their House majority and Pelosi the speakership. Nine of the freshmen sit on the House Agriculture Committee. Several said they feared any vote to reform farm programs would endanger their political prospects.
The Bay Area has become a hotbed of opposition to this year's farm bill. Food activists have teamed with environmentalists ...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
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Pelosi's prime motivation in supporting the current farm policy apparently is to preserve the re-election prospects of freshman Democrats in rural districts who toppled Republicans in November and helped secure Democrats their House majority and Pelosi the speakership. Nine of the freshmen sit on the House Agriculture Committee. Several said they feared any vote to reform farm programs would endanger their political prospects.If the Senate Republicans were smart they'd get those subsidies stripped out or greatly scaled back when it goes to committee. But of course they're not.
Wanna bet this story never sees the light of day in the MSM?
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‘Activists’ want more federal money for food stamps, environmental programs , and ‘free’ school lunches...
This is in the SF Gate, which means at least it has reached her constituents. Not that they care. The only sin in Democrat politics is a bad political strategy.
Do Nothing Nancy is a big spending environmental hypocrite.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Nice Job Pelosi you dumb b#*ch. I think the Botox is constricting the blood vessels feeding her brain. Good idea to pay farmers NOT to produce more corn which can be used to make ethanol. Idiot.
Folks, the reality is that with the high price of corn there will be very little corn subsidies paid out to farmers this year. Not sure of the situation with other commodities.
Not another budget busting farm bill.
Sheesh
Farmers used to be the proponents of individualism and
free enterprise; however, most fruits are still subsidy
free.
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