Include President-elect Barack Obama among those concerned that millionaire farmers are getting federal subsidies. A Government Accountability Office report issued Monday said that, between 2003 and 2006, $49 million in subsidies went to farmers who made more than the $2.5 million gross income cutoff. Obama cited the report Tuesday and said that “if it’s true, it’s a prime example of waste.” But the Washington Post’s Ticker blog was skeptical that Obama could do anything, noting that many other presidents have tried and failed to curb farm subsidies. “To the president-elect, we say: Good luck with that,” the blog said. “Let us know how it works out for you.”
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25 Comments
The best way to increase your farm income?
Put up a mailbox.
The gov’t will find it and send money.
Robin Hood, rob the rich and give to the poor. Lets talk about our Rich politicians who provide nothing and produce nothing of value. At least the farmers feed us.
This is an old (politically incorrect) joke: What do you get when you cross a Native American with a Farmer? Answer: Two checks a month.
Was Brownback one of those gentleman farmers collecting the graft? If they cut that Roberts going to have a hard time wooing the rural areas!
There definitely should be an income cutoff limit, but then, they’d just list more people as owners.
The story in the paper goes into more detail, differentiating between farm and non-farm income. The limit on farm income is the above listed $2.5 million gross. That seems like a lot of money..until you realize a combine costs what, $400,000? I don’t think the cutoff should be on gross farm income, due to the expenses involved.
But, as the news story points out, people with high non-farm incomes are supposedly limited or barred from subsidies. Just enforcing that one part would help end the abuses.
Obama would be a good person to cut off welfare for rich “farmers.”
No one supported him less than Big Agra.
Slash and burn, baby!
This could be interesting to watch.
All part of a cunning plan to nationalize land ownership.
When I was in high school the son of a local farmer talked about his family’s business. He told me how much a tractor cost, and a combine, and feed bills and stuff. And he said, “Last year my dad made only three-thousand dollars.”
Okay. A farm is a small business. But the economics of agriculture is so different from those of us townies. That farm kid’s dad bought a tractor and a combine and put up another pole barn and fed his family and paid utilities and ended up with only $3,000 more at the end of the year.
When we in town say “I made $45,000 last year” we’re talking before expenses. I’m not sure — and I don’t want to do a total accounting because that would mean looking at my 401(k) which just sounds depressing — but I’m not sure I’m $3,000 ahead of last year. I kinda doubt it.
I wish I could get paid for not growing soybeans. I’m damned good at not growing soybeans and should be rewarded. I haven’t grown tons of soybeans. So where’s my check?
People get paid for not doing lots of things in America. Like work for instance.
Here’s a pair of graphs that totally under-cuts everything the CONs believe.
http://www.thenation.com/special/images/extreme_inequalitychart.jpg
When taxes on the super-rich go up, the economy improves and wealth inequality goes down.
When taxes on the super-rich fall to extremely low levels, wealth inequality shoots up and economic DEPRESSION follows.
I think all subsidies to farmers are a waste, in fact other than food inspections isn’t the entire dept of AG a waste?
Capn, my personal theory on that is because money and wealth flows to the top, and without a redistribution system (and wages doesn’t qualify because those at the top are by nature greedy, and will seek to pit wage earners against one another)income equality is built into the capitalist system. Bush upset that balance beyond any benefit of the laffeter curve.
One of the richest families in Wichita got that way back in the late 1940’s by buying up worthless, unplantable land and soliciting millions in Land Bank money to not plant it. They invested much of that money in substandard housing, eventually becoming the largest slumlords in town and they’re now leading the charge to abolish property taxes on all their rat trap 4-plexes they bought with our tax money!
Jed,
The Wichita family you describe sounds pretty business savy to me. After all, the government makes the rules, they played by them, and in full legal compliance, and they benefited from that, then paying taxes on what they profited from.
Sounds good for the economy.
Sounds like you are simply jealous of what they were smart enough to accomplish and you and yours weren’t.
If you don’t like something about it maybe you should criticize the government involvement instead….a rather conservative position.
Subsidies could have been lowered (even though Republicans fought and won for higher subsidies) by increasing import tariffs. However, the Republicans are also repeating the mantra of free trade. So subsidies are needed to prevent the flood of cheap imports so farmers can remain employed. So rather than use a plan that would cost taxpayers less, the Republicans went the route that would bleed the taxpayers of more money. Regardless, about 10% of the farms got two-thirds of the subsidies, namely corporate farms which donate heavily to Republicans and pro-corporate Democrats.
Hey, WAR, here’s a bumper sticker for ya.
If you bad-mouth farmers, don’t talk with your mouth full.
Ya’ll can thank big agri business for this thread. The small family farmer, of the few who still exist, isn’t receiving millions of $$ in subsidies.
When I was in high school the son of a local farmer talked about his family’s business.
And you still don’t have a clue about it, Monkeyhawk.
For the record, I’m pro-farmer.
I also happen to be anti-stupidity.
This is from a series of articles:
Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don’t Farm
By Dan Morgan, Gilbert M. Gaul and Sarah Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 2, 2006; A01
EL CAMPO, Tex. — Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years.
Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual “direct payments,” because years ago the land was used to grow rice.
Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.
Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a seed. Mary Anna Hudson, 87, from the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston, has received $191,000 over the past decade. For Houston surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell, the total was $490,709.
“I don’t agree with the government’s policy,” said Matthews, who wanted to give the money back but was told it would just go to other landowners. “They give all of this money to landowners who don’t even farm, while real farmers can’t afford to get started. It’s wrong.”
More if you care to google it up……..
Now don’t this crap just wad your panties?
While real farm families go under, others take the money that the farmers deserve, EVEN WHEN THEY POINTED OUT THE PROBLEM.
Don’t we have ANY politicians with as much integrity as they have self-esteem?
BTW, it was a farmer friend who told me this:
The best way to increase your farm income?
Put up a mailbox.
The gov’t will find it and send money.
“Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don’t Farm”
Is this true? If so, what is the logic behind it?
Yes it is true.
Read the WE Blog header at top.
It refers to the same newspaper articles, apparently. Just copy and paste the article paragraph into google. You can’t miss it.
There’s been plenty of talk about this for YEARS.
In some Texas counties, if you can buy 10 acres and leave 9 unimproved, the govt will send you many thousands. Also see Bill Moyers Journal for interviews, etc.
And you thought RP McMurphy was crazy……..
Oh, I forgot to answer.
NO LOGIC here.
Just government.
Boxic,
“Sounds like you are simply jealous of what they were smart enough to accomplish and you and yours weren’t.”
Sounds like fraud to me, and I’m not jealous; this guy was a mean bastard who profited off of misery, ruined an awful lot of people to get his and did everything he could to evade his own responsibilities. In any civilized country he would have died in prison.
If you’re conservative/libertarian then you would have to answer NO subsidies.
Let the markets rule.
Anything less is evil socialism.