Posted on 06/21/2013 3:57:12 PM PDT by jazusamo
Legislation: Congress on Friday rejected the nearly $1 trillion farm bill by a vote of 234 to 195. So what? you ask. For one, it had never happened. For another, it shows rank-and-file politicians are getting nervous.
That the measure went down in flames is a good thing, even if the reasons each party had for opposing it were radically different.
Even calling it a "farm" bill was a misnomer. It was really a bloated welfare bill that would have kept subsidies in place for wealthy farmers while supersizing spending on food stamps.
The bill's $940 billion price tag over 10 years was shocking enough. That amounted to a 50% increase over the last farm bill, passed in 2008 during the depths of a recession and vetoed by President Bush as too big.
Equally stunning was the fact that nearly 80% of the money was to be spent for food stamps, not farming.
In short, this so-called farm bill would have turned vast numbers of American urban dwellers into semi-permanent welfare recipients.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Absolutely.
The USDA needs to be abolished. There are more USDA employees than there are farmers in this country.
Hugh and Series defeat for Boner. He is no longer in control.
San Fran Nan was beside herself and said she would have had the leadership ability to push it through.
What a joke, she’s the one that said we have to pass it to see what’s in it. Got news for that hen turkey, that isn’t leadership.
Seems like the whole bill is just a scam for the GMO-crowd and their allies in the ethanol industry...
Seems like the whole bill is just a scam for the GMO-crowd and their allies in the ethanol industry...
Exactly...
Scary is that we had some DU types posting 2 nights ago on another thread cheerleading Monsanto and their GMO FreakFoods...of course, they will not come here and defend Monsanto wanting BILLIONS in taxpayer money from the new farm bill
In my view that’s what it amounts to with the overwhelming majority of subsidies going to large corporations.
I disagree, vehemently!
Unless you meant to say we need to completely abolish the entire bloated USA Federal government, and set the date for an orderly Constitutional Convention, with new special elected representatives from all 50 states.(Or we can do it the hard way)
I support the USDA as one of the few vital agencies the Feds are authorized to operate on a Federal level.
Food safety is very important to all, and I think it a proper use of Federal government resources, since we must all eat to survive.
Meat and vegetable products are routinely shipped and imported via interstate and internationally.
So are insect born pests,nuisance plants,food born diseases,etc.
What needs to be abolished is the opportunity for politicians, businesses, lawyers, bureaucrats and criminals to play self-serving financial gains with the USDA regulations.
Can it be reduced in size? Probably.
1) You support removal of the tariff on imported sugar, which --just by itself-- costs Americans well over $3 billion/year and benefits just 24 or 25 sugar-growing families in the US.
2) You support removal of the idiotic ethanol subsidies (there are STILL more than one, notwithstanding last year's smoke-and-mirrors foofaraw), which is absolutely indefensible on both an EROI basis and on the basis of (ready?) simple high-school chemistry.
3) You demand the cessation of the laughable so-called "Pigford" settlements, which pay off, among other notable citizens, elderly black widows who grow a tomato plant or two on their windowsill.
4) You cease supporting Monsanto's (and other corporations') attempt to control agriculture in the US through patent fraud and lawsuit coercion, which, just by the way, is becoming worse every year.
5) You begin arguing against (hell's bells, you're not even aware of it, bah!) Smithfield's sale to the Chinese. Subsidised by this "agriculture" bill, bet your ass.
6) You learn (not bloody likely, evidently) about the abuses every year of "Federal" "marketing orders", every one of which is a descendant of the Depression and FDR's jackassery, and every one of which raises the cost of food for every American.
I'm just warming up. Each of these odious points is CONTINUED in the current, now temporarily rejected, "agriculture" bill.
It seems to have escaped your tiny, tiny mind that food inspection and control of noxious plants are legitimate functions of goobermint, whereas the DoA's active pimping for crony capitalism, from 1934 through today, is most certainly not. YET, the latter is the principal, and far the most expensive, of DoA's functions.
To adapt a quote from that liberal shibboleth, "Inherit The Wind": "You hypocrite, you fraud, you're more of a statist than THEY are!"
And yes, sarasmom, I will debate you any time you wish on any point of this "agriculture" bill that you like (you will notice, I'm sure, that I've never even mentioned the reparations-driven SNAP (i.e. food stamps) programme). You'd best hold on to your butt, young lady, because I come armed with nothing -- say again, nothing -- but hard fact.
You'd be far better advised to yell at the Regress for their silly-ass and destructive regulations which have no other effect than limiting the production of food. However, I've yet to see a supporter of DoA who would do that.
And you will reap what you sow, you statist. Good luck to you -- you'll need it.
There is a PLETHORA of departments and agencies that need to be abolished.
Unfortunately, the GOP ‘leadership’ is sorely lacking in anything that resembles Constitutional know-how.
IMHO, we’re damn close to a true Civil War (the ‘first’ does not fit the definition of ‘the overtake the current ruling entity’)
Because I notice that all the people you pinged, did not actually reply/participate on the topic, except for myself.
And “my little rant” could not possibly have been misconstrued as supportive of any of the points you listed in YOUR rant against the USDA.
When/if you ever sober up, feel free to apologise publically, and profusely.
I will not accept a private apology from you, at this point.
You, sir or madamn, are either an idiot or a troll!
Multifaceted welfare.
None of the pingees responded, therefore I perforce am drinking? Now, THAT'S a howler!
Just FYI, the pingees are all very serious small government advocates, hence the ping. That they have not (yet) responded here is not indicative of anything at all. I don't respond, invariably, to their pings either, but instead limit commentary to the occasions whereon I've something to contribute.
Apologise? To you, or indeed to any statist? Another howler. That will simply never occur.
This "farm bill" was and is more statist poison, an enormous amount of new pork, and larded with yet more instances of crony capitalism, such as has been rampant in all the years of this century. However, you have cause for cheer; this piece of garbage posing as legislation will return, due to the inability of the Regress to refrain from buying votes.
The fact that he is still Speaker says he is still, unfortunately, in control.
USDA's total employment was 101,792 (from here)
BLS number of farmers: 1,202,500 (from here)
America's good, we need it, and we can't have America without it's government. The government can't exist without a military and it can't go on without America's agriculture. OK, so we can always abolish the USDA by just making it the Bur. of Ag. under the Interior Dept. like it was before, but that changes nothing but a lot of letterheads. Seriously, nobody here really wants to lay off this guy:
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