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re: Let's Talk About the Farm Bill
Posted on 1/29/14 at 3:36 pm to Tigah in the ATL
Posted on 1/29/14 at 3:36 pm to Tigah in the ATL
that's me and dad
1
Posted on 1/29/14 at 3:48 pm to Tigah in the ATL
quote:
how about I don't care. Welfare is welfare. Out of my pocket and into a farmer's.
Before current farm policies = 50% of family budget spent on food
Now = 15% of family budget spent on food
Taking so much money out of your pocket...
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:05 pm to Redfish2010
Just in time! I am needing to enroll some property in CRP/WRP. 
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:05 pm to jimbeam
quote:I didn't you was a fella of color.
jimbeam
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:11 pm to JayWall
quote:
The same farmers bitching about ObamaCare and welfare while taking a shite load of government money themselves.
Buncha hypocrite fricks.
If they are the same, you're right. Welfare is welfare.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:12 pm to DonChowder
quote:
quote:
Wonderful. I'm so glad my taxes are being well spent.
Your taxes have never been well spent.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:16 pm to Mung
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:19 pm to MisterSenator
Here's something from Reason
LINK
It's no longer necessary, and it's wasteful federal spending.
Once you start a federal program, it's hard to wean people off of it. This program is a great example of that.
LINK
quote:
In 2012, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) spent $22 billion on subsidy programs for farmers. Introduced in the 1930s to help struggling small family farms, the subsidies now routinely draw condemnation from both left and right as wasteful corporate welfare. While the number of farms is down 70 percent since the 1930s—only 2 percent of Americans are directly engaged in farming—farmers aren’t necessarily struggling anymore. In 2010, the average farm household earned $84,400, up 9.4 percent from 2009 and about 25 percent more than the average household income nationwide.
quote:
Take the $4.1 billion the federal government spent on direct payments in 2011. Created in 1996 as a way to get farmers off their addiction to price guarantee programs, these supposedly temporary direct payments are still around. In 2013, a new farm bill, even with the elimination of direct payments, would be a similarly hollow victory. Lawmakers would compensate farmers by expanding another unjustifiable farm subsidy program: crop insurance.
It's no longer necessary, and it's wasteful federal spending.
quote:
Farm subsidies also hurt young farmers through their impact on land values. Almost half of the country’s farmland is operated by someone other than its owner. Those renters—especially young farmers who generally have higher borrowing costs to start with—face increases in both the price of renting and the cost of buying. On the other hand, farmers near retirement age, who own land through inheritance or length of tenure, reap the benefits of higher land values induced by the subsidies. In 2010 some 90,000 direct payments went to wealthy investors and absentee land owners in more than 350 American cities, according to an EWG report.
“It’s no accident that the average age of farmers is nearing 60 years old,” a friend who runs a farm wrote in a recent email to me. “We’ve drastically increased barriers to entry through subsidy programs, at huge social and economic costs. If I’m a 30-year-old farmer, as my sons-in-law are, I should mightily resent the fact that the landowner whose land I need receives government subsidies while I’m forced to compete against those subsidies to secure enough land to have a viable farm business.”
Farm subsidies benefit the rich and hurt the poor. They
Once you start a federal program, it's hard to wean people off of it. This program is a great example of that.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:19 pm to Whiskey Richard
I want my part of that 56 billion!!
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:20 pm to Tigah in the ATL
quote:Well not really. At face value, at least the farmers work for it.
how about I don't care. Welfare is welfare.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:21 pm to Tigah in the ATL
quote:
how about I don't care. Welfare is welfare.
Out of my pocket and into a farmer's.
You're missing my point, pal. Most farmers are just passing the buck these days to the landowner if they lease. That's how some justify paying outrageous rents or buying land at high prices.
Direct subsidies are really kind of small potatoes in the grand scheme of things to normal every day people. It's the people who bought or lease land at high prices that didn't think of them running out that will hurt from this.
The good farmer is still going to be a good farmer and if he makes the right moves in the field and office he'll still have a nice truck, house, and equipment.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:21 pm to RogerTheShrubber
to be fair, a lot of those numbers are corn and soybean farmers in the Midwest.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:21 pm to Choirboy
I know. Its hard work regulating the population of waterfowl, and keeping disease and famine down.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 4:33 pm to Geauxtiga
quote:
Well not really. At face value, at least the farmers work for it.
Not really. They work, but not for that.
Many folks who get welfare work. Welfare just subsidizes their income.
Farmers and soldiers have been sacred cows for a long time.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 5:16 pm to RogerTheShrubber
Something to consider, gov't subsidies are meant to guarantee a stable, low priced food supply that is produced in America. If agriculture production is allowed to shift overseas and the American ag industry withers away, any disruption in commodity supply would be disastrous. It would take years to ramp up production here again, years.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 6:54 pm to RogerTheShrubber
quote:
Farmers and soldiers have been sacred cows for a long time.
Right, because both aren't crucial to national security or anything.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 7:00 pm to RogerTheShrubber
quote:
Farmers and soldiers have been sacred cows for a long time.
I was with you until this.
Unless by "soldiers" you just mean the DoD in general then I agree.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 7:42 pm to jimbeam
quote:
I know a lot of farmers who don't care if subsidies all just go away. Market will correct itself.
I agree that most of these subsidies could go away with the exception of the insurance subsidy. Not one single private farm could afford crop insurance if it was not subsidized. As high as input costs are now one crop failure would bankrupt the majority of big farms if they did not have crop insurance.
The drought 2 years ago would have bankrupted 80% of the large farms in the midwest. If you had 80% of the farms in a single county going out of business it is not like somebody can just jump right in and fill the gap.
Imagine having 4 million dollars invested in a crop and it being a total failure not because of something you did but something you had zero control over. Then the next year you have to come up with another 4 million dollars to put a crop in. That second crop is not going to cover the costs of 2 years.
Without government money there would not be a single crop insurance company.
Let me amend this. Farmers could pay the crop insurance if the price of every single commodity quadrupled overnight without the corresponding increase in production costs. The market could correct this but it would be at the expense of wildly fluctuating prices.
Posted on 1/29/14 at 7:56 pm to TigerGyp
quote:
Something to consider, gov't subsidies are meant to guarantee a stable, low priced food supply that is produced in America. If agriculture production is allowed to shift overseas and the American ag industry withers away, any disruption in commodity supply would be disastrous. It would take years to ramp up production here again, years.
That's true. It's one of the few industries we should subsidize for that reason. An ample food supply is essential for political stability. But it needs work -there are still many egregious examples of how it is a pure welfare program and can manipulated like a tax haven/loophole. And we subsidize them in other ways, such as special labor laws for migrants, immigrant worker permits, etc.
This post was edited on 1/29/14 at 7:59 pm
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