Pelosi takes heat from Democratic activists for her farm (subsidies for the rich) bill

[Robson]

Geez.....More billions in corporate welfare to the rich just to buy a few farm votes.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/21/FARMBILL.TMP

Pelosi takes heat for stand on farm bill
Legislation heavy on subsidies draws Bay Area activists' fire

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed off Friday on a five-year farm bill that would keep multibillion-dollar subsidies flowing to cotton, corn and a handful of other crops, deeply disappointing Bay Area food and environmental activists who had hoped that Congress might shift federal farm policy this year to combat obesity, air and water pollution and industrial farming.

Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, hailed as reform legislation that would grant subsidies to farmers earning up to $1 million -- five times more than the cap sought by the Bush administration -- while increasing actual payments to farmers. The bill comes during the most prosperous era American agriculture has seen in decades as crop prices and farm income approach or set record highs.

"Bush seems to be taking a harder stance on millionaires than the Democratic Party, which is surprising," said Kari Hamerschlag, policy director for the California Coalition for Food and Farming, a Watsonville group urging lawmakers to move money from crop subsidies to environmental and nutrition programs.

snipped

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. She's some leader, ain't she?

[partylessinOhio]

2. Were there any grape subsidies in that bill for Madame Vineyard?

Isn't this a slap in the face to family farms that aren't planting this year because of the drought. They don't have the money to irrigate their crops so they are selling off their equipment. These are farms that have been in their families for nearly 100 years.

What will happen to their land - bought up by megabusiness conglomerates?

I would rather my tax monies would support small individual farms that could provide the food for America so we don't have to import contaminated crops from China and other third world countries.

:thumbsdown:

[Robson]

3. I've given up figuring how they think.

I'm convinced that there is no longer an interest in common sense and the common good by many of our elected officials. It's all about what's good for the corporate and special interests, and the country be damned.