[SoConPubbie]

"If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures." - Alexander Hamilton "We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all." -- President Ronald Reagan "A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." - Thomas Paine 1792 "It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

[SoConPubbie]

CRUZ or LOSE!

CRUZ or LOSE!

[LibFreeUSA]

see..... "FOOD INC"

[jjotto]

Subsidized crop insurance is typically the only subsidy most actual farmers receive. It could easily be provided by the free market.

[drypowder]

There was once a government program called the Payment in Kind Program (PIK) where the government paid growers to not grow cereals crops i.e., wheat. There is very large farming company in Yolo County Kalifornicate who in one year received so much PIK subsidies that the grower purchased 1,000 acres more of class one farming land. That's 5 million dollars this grower was handed for not growing a wheat crop. BTW; this grower's family back in the late 1800s homesteaded mush of the land they own today.

[elpadre]

Farm subsidies played a important role in keeping family farms afloat early on, but the subsidies became too large and transferable. Companies in tobacco land, for instance, if they bought 1000 acres on which to build an industrial plant, also got the tobacco allotments assigned to the farms although the companies were nor agricultural. They just leased the acreage out to neighboring farmers to grow on their farm. Then the corporate farms became the rage, bought out the family farms and now we have corporate welfare because of it.

[Kaled]

Frankly, that Scott Walker aide had a good point about Iowa being overprivileged. The primaries should move to some kind of random-draw order or something.

[BitWielder1]

sub•si•dize - Force someone else to pay for your pet projects.

[NEMDF]

Somehow I stumbled on some info about farm subsidies and saw that my step-niece and her husband, who own a pretty small farm in east central IA, receive about $80,000 per year in farm subsidies. This seemed to be a consistent number of what they would get year to year. I am pretty sure my family would find an extra $80,000 per year “gift” to be quite helpful to our household.