Farm Subsidies -- The House Bill

Farm Subsidies -- The House Bill (Full Version)

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cloudboy -> Farm Subsidies -- The House Bill (7/20/2013 9:24:54 PM)
The house passed a $1 Trillion Dollar farm bill. $1,000,000,000,000.00 “What's remarkable and extraordinary about the farm bill is that, at a time of record crop prices and federal deficits, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill to increase subsidies,” Scott Faber, vice president for governmental affairs at the Environmental Working Group, told me this week. “It’s hard to understand how anyone in the House who calls himself a conservative could support this, but many did,” said Chris Chocola, president of the free-market-oriented Club for Growth, which opposed the bill and lobbied against it. Earlier this year, the Agriculture Department projected that farm income in 2013 would be $128.2 billion, the highest since 1973, fueled by “record crop production levels” and “high prices for many crops.” Moreover, surging prices of farmland — 2013 was the third year of double-digit increases, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City — have greatly improved farm balance sheets, the department said, and raised the net worth of many farmers. Despite flush times in the farm belt, the bill the House passed last week provides what the Environmental Working Group calls the most generous farm subsidies in history. It increased crop insurance subsidies and raised price targets for a wide variety of crops, locking in price guarantees at their recent near-record levels. ------------------ Is this a text book example of the Republican playbook? Lip service to guns and banning abortion to win votes. The real bacon goes to big business. While at it, cut food stamps from the bargain to help "balance the budget deficit and government waste."

Phydeaux -> RE: Farm Subsidies -- The House Bill (7/20/2013 9:50:36 PM)
A significant portion of the Tea Party (and other republicans) tried to cut those farm subsidies. But the politics are more difficult than you allude to. For example - ethanol production - with a tariff on ethanol is a farm subsidy - but it has enormous democrat and some republican (farm state) support - despite being a disaster for the company. Fact is, I suppose that with elections looming the repubs aren't going to do anything to turn off their base.

pahunkboy -> RE: Farm Subsidies -- The House Bill (7/20/2013 10:12:11 PM)
meanwhile they dont seem to renew food stamps

DaddySatyr -> RE: Farm Subsidies -- The House Bill (7/20/2013 10:16:43 PM)
I wonder how many dollars Birdseye and Dole get out of the farm subsidies? If you looked into what's considered to be "small farms", it might be a real eye-opener. Plow the back 40, Michael

Edwynn -> RE: Farm Subsidies -- The House Bill (7/20/2013 10:17:31 PM)
The call against farm subsidies existed long before the tea party was a twinkle in its own eye. Farm subsidies in the developed countries is part of what keeps poor countries poor, and Europe is a much bigger culprit in this than even the US. In any case the farmers are effectively just the bag men for the agro-chem industry, with their high-priced pesticides and even higher-priced bio-engineered seeds to withstand their own poisons. The Koch Bros. who started up and funded the tea party to begin with, benefit greatly from this scheme. Fuck the teapissers.

Phydeaux -> RE: Farm Subsidies -- The House Bill (7/20/2013 10:45:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Edwynn The call against farm subsidies existed long before the tea party was a twinkle in its own eye. Farm subsidies in the developed countries is part of what keeps poor countries poor, and Europe is a much bigger culprit in this than even the US. In any case the farmers are effectively just the bag men for the agro-chem industry, with their high-priced pesticides and even higher-priced bio-engineered seeds to withstand their own poisons. The Koch Bros. who started up and funded the tea party to begin with, benefit greatly from this scheme. Fuck the teapissers. You know, there I was actually agreeing with you for a moment. I am in favor of ending all farm subsidies. Generally, I'm in favor of ending all subsidies. Its not the govts job to pic winners and losers. But then you had to get all nuts making farmers bag-men. And while the Koch bros fund some tea parties - they didn't start them up, and they are (although you won't believe it) only a peripheral player in the tea party industry.

Edwynn -> RE: Farm Subsidies -- The House Bill (7/21/2013 1:16:41 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Phydeaux But then you had to get all nuts making farmers bag-men. Who makes the most money from the subsidies? The farmers? Or Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, et al.? If not for price supports, subsidies, paying farmers for not growing or producing. etc., then we'd never have such absurdities as rGBH, terminator seeds, or other such market distortion disasters. All of which Monsanto alone makes a killing off of. Your tax dollars at work. The farmer only takes a relatively small cut, for doing his duty in using the environmentally and biologically destructive inputs. If you understand the simplest thing about supply and demand, then you'd know that increase in supply lowers prices. But everything the agro-chem companies do is for purpose of increasing yield, meaning supply. So, now the 'price support' subsidies have to be increased to counteract the effect of this increase in supply. The greater the increase in supply, the greater the subsidies 'needed' to counteract the lower market price as result of this increase in supply, which is engendered by the subsidies in the first place. So now you see why companies in the business of increasing yield (supply) are going gangbusters, when there is such a government payout to counteract the natural market price result of such increase in supply. All of which decimates the already destitute farmers in 'third world' countries, BTW, whose governments can't even think about this level of subsidy. If you do the accounting, the vast lot of what the government sends to the farmers goes to pay for these extremely high priced inputs, which are required to be used to get the subsidies and price supports in the first place.

DesideriScuri -> RE: Farm Subsidies -- The House Bill (7/21/2013 5:39:56 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Phydeaux quote: ORIGINAL: Edwynn The call against farm subsidies existed long before the tea party was a twinkle in its own eye. Farm subsidies in the developed countries is part of what keeps poor countries poor, and Europe is a much bigger culprit in this than even the US. In any case the farmers are effectively just the bag men for the agro-chem industry, with their high-priced pesticides and even higher-priced bio-engineered seeds to withstand their own poisons. The Koch Bros. who started up and funded the tea party to begin with, benefit greatly from this scheme. Fuck the teapissers. You know, there I was actually agreeing with you for a moment. I am in favor of ending all farm subsidies. Generally, I'm in favor of ending all subsidies. Its not the govts job to pic winners and losers. But then you had to get all nuts making farmers bag-men. And while the Koch bros fund some tea parties - they didn't start them up, and they are (although you won't believe it) only a peripheral player in the tea party industry. The farmers are the pawns, Phydeaux. They are not the ones in control. While I agree that we need to end the farm subsidies to choke out the agro-chem giants, the collateral damage will be farmers, and our food supply. It would all work out in the end, as everything would get reset and farmers would return, but that would take time, and you would almost need a military dictatorship to have the political will and strength to make it through. We'd almost have to have a Chairman Mao, with that kind of might and resolve. While Mao did it for control of the citizens, in this case, the control would be returned to the citizens from the agro-chem industry. I don't see any possibility of that happening in my lifetime. Our elected representatives are all too beholden to Big Biz for that to happen. But, perhaps this could be the call to arms that brings the Tea Party and OWS together to lead a grassroots campaign?

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