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Yet, I can’t tell you how many FFA, 4H, DHIA and Holstein Association dinners that I’ve attended over the last 30 years where farmers and farmer’s wives have berated me for being against subsidies.

Dad and I run cattle. I think I'm the last one in the county, perhaps the state, who doesn't take government subsidies. After a lifetime of resisting, my dad finally started a few years ago. I figure that socialism is a harmless retirment hobby and they did soften him up with those SS checks first so they can't blame him.

The irony is that, for the first time, we've received protein support for cattle for drought. So, I got my dad to sign up for it. And they used up all that surplus dried milk to make the protein feed and get rid of the huge surplus stocks.

Socialized farming is crazy and hurts farmers more than anything except allowing Asia and Europe to block our entry to their markets. Europe is especially annoying because they charge so much for mediocre foods, by the reports of people I know who go over.

Keep milking those cows. If we have more drought, the taxpayers need to buy more of your surplus milk to feed to my cows. God only knows why people aren't up in arms over this bullcrap.

Keep milking those cows. If we have more drought, the taxpayers need to buy more of your surplus milk to feed to my cows. God only knows why people aren't up in arms over this bullcrap

They aren't because many of them have bought into the myth that we have a "cheap food" policy. They believe that government payments to farmers keep their food prices down. They don't. I would be willing to bet you some serious money that on a pound-for-$ basis, the protein you got from milk cost [a minimum] of 10x what it would have cost to produce it by, [for example] soybean farmers. But then, it wouldn't have been "free".

Just as a lottery is a tax on people who don't understand statistics, subsidies are a tax on people who don't understand economics. Given the state of our government schools, that's about 99.9% of the people of the country.

Farming has a great many rewards, and money should be one of them. Here's hoping the government will get out of the way so it can be.