Posted by
Tomás Aquinas on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 11:20:22 AM
Here's a tidbit on subsidies, from economist Greg Mankiw. Mankiw
teaches at Harvard. He's an easterner. But he also studies the economy,
and does well enough at it to teach it at a prestigious university.
Obama gets his advice from special interest panderers like farmers'
advocacy groups.
Meanwhile,
John McCain says "I would veto that bill" and will vote against it in
the Senate. Strangely silent is Barack Obama. A major theme of his
campaign is to battle corporate special interests in Washington on
behalf of the "middle class." Here is one of his first tests, and it'll
be fascinating to see if he sides with the well-funded commodity lobby
over consumers and taxpayers.
Guess what. Obama went for the lobbyists. Farmers don't have a problem with that, because they
are the special interest group.
Subsidies
for rich farmers: Farmers would be eligible for government subsidy
payments if their incomes were as high as $1.5 million if married, and
up to $750,000 if single. We had a big fight with Congress last year
over whether families with income of 3 times the poverty level should
receive taxpayer-subsidized health insurance. This bill would subsidize
amarried farming couple with income more than 107 times the poverty
level (which is $14,000 for a couple). Put another way, such a couple
would be in the top 0.2% of the income distribution. You would be
subsidizing their business with your income taxes.
From the Wall Street Journal's "Who wants to be a millionaire?" we have this:
This
year farm income is expected to reach an all-time high of $92.3
billion, an increase of 56% in two years, making growers perhaps the
most undeserving welfare recipients in American history. But that won't
stop this bill from passing the House and Senate by wide margins.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was once a farm subsidy skeptic, but she now has
some 30 freshman Democrats from battleground rural districts to
protect. So more than $10 billion a year in giveaways to agribusiness
is a necessary taxpayer sacrifice to keep her majority.
Here's a corker:
A
bigger scam is the new income limit to qualify for subsidies. Mr. Bush
sought a $200,000 annual income cap, but Congress can't bring itself to
go below $750,000. Even that is a farce, because it doesn't include
loan programs and disaster payments, and it allows spouses to qualify
for payments too. The White House and liberal reformers calculate that
farm owners with clever accountants can have incomes of up to $2.5
million and still get a taxpayer handout.
Of course, out
here they live by that "Code of the West" and they would never do
something like that, being Randolph Scott honest and all. I wonder if
the Brothers Salazar have ever heard of that "Code of the West" they
keep going on about down in Las Animas County.
Here's another one:
Nearly
every crop – corn, wheat, sugar – has won increases in subsidy payments
even as farm commodity prices explode. (See nearby chart.) Of the 17
most subsidized commodities, only rice and cotton will get a slight
reduction in payments, while the bill extends the farm welfare net to
lentils, chick peas, fruits and vegetables, and even organic foods.
There are new programs for Kentucky horse breeders and Pacific Coast
salmon fishermen, and your tax dollars will help finance the dairy
industry's "Got Milk?" campaign. Oh, and you still don't even have to
farm to cash in. Hundreds of millions of dollars will go to landowners
based on their "historical planting average" even if they haven't
planted a seed in years.
and Big Sugar? Hoooooodoggie but
those boys done foun' theysefs some sugar daddies in the Brothers
Salazar an' that Brah' Barack:
And
once again the big sugar plantation owners in Florida walk away with
the sweetest deal: Big Sugar bagged an increase in price supports and a
guarantee of 85% of the domestic sugar market at these guaranteed
prices. So taxpayers are on the hook for buying surplus domestically
produced sugar at 23 cents a pound and selling it for ethanol for
closer to three cents a pound.
The Farm Bill is a Salazar screwing, and they aren't even giving us the benefit of using one of those new
"government seals".
But speaking out against this nonsense, especially down these parts, means we must hate farmers and other sons of the soil.
Those
same people who suck up those tax dollars in the Farm Bill are the same
ones who will scream about "special interest groups", and who will
complain the most about welfare moms getting those food stamps. We've
all heard it, sitting around the Copper Kitchen or the tables at Loaf
and Jug, the hard workin' men going on about welfare.
Welfare comes in many forms.
BTW...food stamps? Funded through the Farm Bill. Yep. At least two-thirds of that bill is dole money in one form or another.
Want more? Here ya go:
Your tax bux at work.