“A U.S. Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago, when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat,” wrote columnist Nicholas Kristof, who wants Barack Obama to appoint a reformer to the Agriculture Department and rename the position “secretary of food.”
“Renaming the department would signal that Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy – all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.”
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17 Comments
Oh Gawd, here comes chicken lady.
And what is more important? We do all eat and since the majority has moved away from the fields and the wood for gathering their own food. We still do need an overseer of the most important thing we do in our day. I will agree there is bloat, waste and deception going on. More than once I have encounter someone that has bought land and planted only enough to qualify for a government subsidy it.
Takes them only giving a half hearted attempt and gain more money then they would have gotten from their crop. The investment of an old beat up tractor and a few bags of seed and they make money without working for it all day. For them its like a part time job that does not require them to work more hours or break a sweat. They get a tax break for no more effort than finding a useless piece of equipment in the paper and a investment of a few thousand dollars. They ride around a couple of days plowing and seeding than forget about the effort till they file for the subsidy. That is the only crop they are looking forward to coming in.
The most revealing of what is wrong with the farm subsidy system was admitted by the journalist himself.
One measure of the absurdity of the system: Every year you, the American taxpayer, send me a check for $588 in exchange for me not growing crops on timberland I own in Oregon (I forward the money to a charity). That’s right. The Agriculture Department pays a New York journalist not to grow crops in a forest in Oregon.
That’s just stupid.
“Renaming the department would signal that Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy – all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.”
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So much self evident BS in one short statement. The words of a truly clueless NY liberal.
If we’re going to have a Secretary of Food, shouldn’t it logically be paired with Drink, which is currently regulated by the Treasury Department?
The basic problem with the proposal is agriculture doesn’t deal exclusively with food. Cotton, bio-fuels, leather, hood ornaments for Texans’ Cadillacs… all come from agriculture.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Get business OUT of government.
Get government IN to business!
“exacerbates climate change”
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How do you suggest we stop the gas emmission from cattle? LOL
How about secretary of ingestibles?
Kia,
“How do you suggest we stop the gas emmission from cattle? LOL”
Stop it? Hell no; harvest it and run your car and heat your home with it! Build a methane generator, fuel it with cow pollution and open a gas station! Extract the Ammonium Nitrate and sell it for fertilizer. Don’t leave all that useful byproduct on the ground to make us all suffer every time we pass a feedlot!
P-mama,
“How about secretary of ingestibles?”
That would also require a Secretary of Indigestables. He could be in charge of regulating the fast-food industry.
What about a Secretary of Effluent as well?
A Secretary of Flatulence?
A Secretary of Coitus?
A Secretary of Sleep?
They already have a secretary of Coitus.
Its called Health and Human Services.
Oh goody, nothing like a good Leftist asswit in charge of your food.
Why do they worry so about our health yet are so comfortable with the 30 million babies they killed in the last 30 years.
Odd. But the left is closing in on their hero’s death rate. I believe their hero Stalin is attributed with only 22 million or so. So I think they have done him one better.