Posted on 01/04/2008 10:50:31 AM PST by SmithL
The next time House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid talk about ending poverty, stopping giveaways for wealthy corporations and finding bipartisan solutions, remember their work on the 2007 farm bill.
Before adjourning for the holidays, the Senate endorsed a $286 billion farm bill that is only slightly less wasteful and indefensible than the porkfest the House passed earlier in the year.
Despite a few nods at "reform," the Senate bill continues and expands subsidies for millionaire corporate farmers. It undercuts growers in Africa and developing countries who are desperate to compete on a level playing field. It spurs the overproduction of corn-syrup products that contribute to obesity. And it represents a slap in the face to the Bush administration, which rightly urged Congress to scale back the subsidies and pass a fiscally responsible bill.
For a moment in mid-December, there appeared to be a glimmer of hope. A bipartisan majority of senators rallied behind an amendment by Sen. Bryon Dorgan, D-N.D., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that would have capped farm support payments to $250,000 per farm each year. That would have freed up funds for food stamps, farm conservation programs and other, more worthy investments.
To their credit, California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer endorsed the amendment as well as other proposed reforms. But they were rebuffed by a coalition of Southern senators, led by Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., whose family has received farm subsidies in the past. Lincoln and other allies of Southern cotton and rice persuaded Reid to attach a 60-vote rule for passage of the Dorgan-Grassley amendment. Reformers were able to get just 56 votes,....
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Doesn’t Nancy own Vineyards??? Farm susidies???
I think we should do democraps a favor and get rid of ALL personal income taxes and ONLY TAX THOSE RICH GREEDY CORPRATIONS!
Follow me now...
Corparations don’t really pay taxes- they add it to the price of their products as a cost... so EVERYONE pays taxes- rich, poor, everybody.
No deductions, no ‘pre-bates’ no nothng.
Well, you might find her name here, but I doubt it, probably has her name hidden somewhere under a LLC or corp.
People on the streets are getting angry at the minions of the DNC.
OK!!
Our investments made a killing this past year, so I don’t know what your talking about here.
As soon as I saw the headline, I knew this was going to be a farmer-bash.
farm subsidies really are vile on so many levels.
We have had major droughts AND floods over the past decades and no one in the USA has starved.
I’d like to think there is adequate redundancy built into the system through this bill, but the government is rarely that smart.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.