Second, your claim that farmers receive less in benefits than they pay in taxes if false. The estimate is that the number of farms in the US would be reduced by more than half if direct and indirect payments were removed. And that is EXACTLY what needs to be done. We need about half the people now farming to go out of business because they're terrible businessmen and terrible farmers who have NO CLUE as to what they're doing so that half that remain can finally make some money in a free market where the price of food is determined by market conditions and not where government interference sets prices to be. And yes, when the government gives money to one group at the expense of another, sets prices, and determines who gets to farm by fiat rather than by market laws, that IS socialism.
Third, your claim that farmers can't be socialists because they vote for the most "conservative" candidates is not only silly, but I've already demolished it in the previous post (to which you have yet to respond.) Whenever true conservatives have tried to get farmers off the tit, farmers have thrown them out of office, or made such a squawk that the bills are repealed double-quick. Farmers vote for the most "conservative" candidates -- as long as once in office they keep bringing home the bacon. Farmers vote against socialist programs in the rest of the economy, but they vote in favor of them when they perceive their own interests are in play.
Finally, I notice you don't respond, and can't respond, to the claim that farmers are one of the groups destroying the country with the importation of Third World slave labor whose hospitalization and other benefits have to be subsidized by all of the other taxpayers. Again, try taking that illegal labor away, and you'll find out how "conservative" farmers are.
In short, in the minds of most farmers: they are paying for a lot more in government services than they actually receive.
And there IS THE PROBLEM. This is true in the minds of farmers. But isn't true in the real world.
Please don't respond with your emotions and feeeeeeeeelings and empty opinions again; I've heard your nonsense hundreds of times over the last 50+ years. Come back with actual, documented facts, or don't bother.
Sorry FRiend, but first you continue to miss my points, and now you're flying off the handle for no reason.
I don't dispute any of your facts, just your interpretations of them.
And if you can cite some cases of rural farming counties which vote solid Democrats, then I'll concede those really are just a bunch of socialist takers.
But the reality is that most of the conservative vote in this country comes from rural counties, which has to mean your average farmer is not a liberal Democrat.
And that's the only point I'm making, and indeed, you seem to concede it, despite all your huffing and puffing.
FredZarguna: "We need about half the people now farming to go out of business because they're terrible businessmen and terrible farmers who have NO CLUE as to what they're doing so that half that remain can finally make some money in a free market where the price of food is determined by market conditions and not where government interference sets prices to be."
You probably already know that the number of farmers has been shrinking by half every couple of decades for well over 100 years.
And this despite all the government programs intended to keep small farmers farming.
Every year there are fewer and fewer, larger and larger farms.
So your wish to see the numbers of farmers reduced by half has already been granted, many times, and continues to be partially granted every year.
Point is, all those socialistic government programs have done nothing but maybe slow the process of reducing the numbers of farms and growing the average farm size.
Indeed, as I pointed out in post #13 above, the top 10% of all farms received 80% of government subsidies.
So those programs are not even about saving small farmers.
But the bottom line is still this: despite your inexplicable desire to portray small farmers in the worst possible light -- as a bunch of ignorant Democrat socialist takers -- the fact is: farmers are among the most reliably conservative voters we have.
FredZarguna: "Second, your claim that farmers receive less in benefits than they pay in taxes if false."
Which you claim without presenting any data to support it.
I was not able to find more recent data, but numbers from the 1990s suggests that larger farmers pay over $100 billion per year in taxes, and that agriculture related businesses pay additional hundreds of billions.
So the relatively small amounts paid as welfare to small farmers, or price supports for larger farms, seems to me a rather pitiful return on successful farmers' tax "investment" in Federal and other government services.
FredZarguna: "Farmers vote against socialist programs in the rest of the economy, but they vote in favor of them when they perceive their own interests are in play."
As I've explained before, if you offered your average successful farmer a 50% reduction in total taxes, in exchange for privatizing various government farm-welfare programs, I think you'd find they will take that offer as a good deal.
But as long as they are forced into paying ever higher taxes, I don't think it's surprising that farmers would want something of value back, in the form of government services.
So again, my main point here is simply to plea for some understanding and sympathy for smaller farmers.
If history is a guide, they are doomed to economic extinction anyway, government programs only delay the inevitable for many, and in the mean time, they really are your proto-typical small businessman, the heart and soul of a conservative Republican party.
So don't trash talk them, FRiend. ;-)