Deadbeat Moms sign I saw on my drive across Iowa

[liberal N proud]

This last week I made a trip to Iowa for my 30 year class reunion and to visit my parents.
As I am crossing northern Iowa heading west on US 20 west of Waterloo about 60+ miles, I notice a big red sign in the field to my right.

Hell is for Deadbeat moms

Then a second sign similarly done.

Deadbeat Moms get off your ass and off welfare

I totally lost it and my first reaction was wonderment. "How much government aid do you suppose that farmer gets for not planting crops or just to supplement lower than expected crop prices?"

This moron is sitting there bellyaching about welfare when he is receiving what amounts to the same damn thing. Government AID!

Anyway, If you live in Iowa near Iowa Falls, Owasa area, drive by Owasa on US 20, the signs are directly across the highway near Owasa.

I would like to know how much government subsidies this farmer is getting while damning others to hell for the same.

Here is the google maps link to the location where the signs were located: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http%3A%2F%2Fbbs.keyhole.com%2Fubb%2Fdownload.php%3FNumber%3D941287&t=h&om=1&ie=UTF8&ll=42.437975,-93.204494&spn=0.061317,0.105572&z=13

[CatholicEdHead]

1. I would also cross-post this in the Iowa form

They may have more info on this.

[liberal N proud]

2. Done

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=152x17645

[poverlay]

3. The farmer probably just wants his daughter and her kids to move out of his house>>>

hehehe

[Synnical]

4. I'm confused, please clarify

Dead Beat Moms sounds like a really lame Repuke billboard, and how does farming come into this?

[XOKCowboy]

5. Well in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, etc...

along the interstates and US highways the farmers hold forth expressing their usually right wing views to a captive audience. They're not really billboards, just signs on fences to proselytize to those driving by.

[ellenfl]

6. the farmer who placed those signs in his field is

probably getting farm welfare in the form of subsidies for not growing crops.

ellen fl

[liberal N proud]

8. Farmers get subsidies from the government

Subsidies for not planting x amount of ground, subsidies to offset prices at market, subsidies for failed crops or low performing crops.

These subsidies are the equivalent of federal aid to the farmer. No matter how you look at it the farmer is getting federal money for doing nothing or very little.
Therefore this farmer is getting federal aid while damning others for doing the same.



By deadbeat moms, knowing how people stereotype, I assume that he probably means any mother receiving welfare or any other type of federal or state aid

[Sanctified]

9. Depends on the Size of the farm.

Small farms receive very little to no subsidies and by small farms I mean any farm that makes under 200,000 a year and since a majority of farmers make around $80,000 or less the subsidies are going to the big corporate farms.

Remember if all these farms where sucking from the government tit Willie Nelson would not have to do Farm Aid anymore.

[Synnical]

13. Damn, you beat me by two minutes!

:hi:

[hfojvt]

27. many of the subsidies are 'market based'

thanks to our collective worship of the supposed 'free market'. For example, the government subsidizes the ethanol industry. Partly to create an alternative fuel, but also largely to increase the demand for, and hence the price of, corn.

This is ostensibly done to 'save the family farm', meaning small farmers. However, this obviously benefits the corporation or large farm planting 5,000 acres of corn far more than it benefits the farmer with 80 or 240 acres. Similar subsidies exist, or existed, for milk, sugar, etc. For a long time the farmers' mantra was 'parity' meaning prices and costs in line with some mythical year in 1920 or 1940.

Even things like the CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) where a farmer was paid to not grow crops on some portion of their land. First could benefit large farmers more because they have more land to put into CRP. Second, it had a purpose to build soil, and reduce erosion. And third, the point was also that, if less corn is grown (because less acreage is planted) that reduces the supply and increases the price received by other farmers who are planting their fields. But note, insofar as that works, it provides larger benefits to larger farms.

It would have been simpler and more effective to just send checks to small family farms if we did not have a 'market ueber alles' mentality, and also if farmers did not have the stubborn notion of their independence from 'welfare' if they got subsidies in the form of price supports instead of checks.

[Synnical]

10. I know this

But, again, the OP needs to clarify.

And, from my understanding, it's only Big Agra that gets subsidies, not the small farmer.

[liberal N proud]

12. Maybe this farmer is not getting aid, but I would like to know just the same

I would like to know if he is getting aid or not. Driving past and knowing many of the farmers in Iowa it just makes me curious. If he is getting aid, he needs to keep his criticisms to him self.

[XOKCowboy]

15. Why??

This is still a free country. This is land that this person owns. The signs are on his property. He has a right to express his opinion. We have the right to ignore those signs.

Really now. He's preaching to the choir. Do you really think that he "converts" people with his signs?

[entanglement]

34. Not getting aid?

or not getting laid? :evilgrin:

[XOKCowboy]

14. They're called CRPs

Crop Reduction Programs. Bill Donaldson got busted as one of the largest recipients of farm subsidies. Actually it's the corporate farms that get most of the subsidies. The family farms are just trying to eek out a living using any means that they have.

[B Calm]

28. I hate it when people stereotype low income people and have

no problem what so ever with corporate welfare. I notice this a lot with the republicans I come in contact with. I also notice it's usually the republicans who try to get something for nothing from the government and then point their finger away from their self to people who are really in need.

[Sparkly]

7. The GOP long ago convinced a lot of people that they'd have a life of ease

if it weren't for "lazy people on welfare."

[RB TexLa]

11. I would think the first one everyone agrees with. You have to pay your child support

[Synnical]

16. Just wondering, have you ever been pregnant?

[RB TexLa]

17. I don't raise children, that is for other people to do

But I fail to see what that has to do with a woman or man not paying their child support?

[Synnical]

18. I agree, I don't make babies either

But then, why, the comments about dead beat moms and not dead beat dads. The OP is just very odd and confusing.

Edit to correct who I am responding to. My bad.

[RB TexLa]

19. The sign said deadbeat moms. Moms or Dads that don't pay. The gender means nothing.

[Sparkly]

20. "get off your ass and off welfare"

That doesn't sound like a complaint about not paying child support.

[RB TexLa]

21. I said everyone could agree with FIRST one. Look back at it, it's there.

[Richard Steele]

33. I think that SECOND sign indicates that you and I misunderstood the first one.

I assumed the term "deadbeat" was the common usage,
referring to a parent who isn't paying child support.

But that second one seems to indicate that the signwriter
is using the word to refer to someone receiving assistance.

[ima_sinnic]

29. it has nothing to do with "not paying child support"

--the farmer is complaining about "welfare" recipients--he makes this clear in his second sign.

[Catherine Vincent]

22. Hell is for obnoxious assholes too.

And it looks like he'll be joining those "dead beat" moms. What a compasionate asshole.

[The Straight Story]

23. Welfare and subsidies are not the same thing here

In the case of not growing crops - the farmer can grow them, but that would affect the prices at the market and hurt other farmers. It would be unfair to ask them not to grow something and then offer them nothing in return.

I think the comment about welfare may be related to something (some event) or someone he knows who avoided paying child support by going on welfare.

Not saying it is right of course :)

[liberal N proud]

35. Both are government aid, are they not?

[Ikonoklast]

24. My ex is a dead-beat mom

She quit a good-paying job to avoid paying support. The court never went after her, either. Double standards, I guess.

My kids didn't see a penny from her, this after she spent their college saving funds, over thirty thousand dollars.

You don't hear much about it, but when the father is granted custody and the court orders the mother to pay child support, the rate of non-payment by non-custodial mothers is higher percentage-wise than non-payment by the fathers.

There are dead-beat moms. My kids know.

[Tsiyu]

30. And? Your point is?

As a woman who is owed over $20,000 in back child support that i will never see, it would not make me feel any better about my situation to see a stupid sign along a podunk road.

And the dad who owes me? Repuke from head-to-toe who told our daughter - when she needed some medical care - to sign up for Tenncare...

[Ikonoklast]

32. My point is lost on you

It seems ok here to bash the deadbeat dads, but speak one ill word of a woman doing the same thing, and watch out.

Have a nice day.

[B Calm]

25. If you know the farmers name there is a link where you can look

up farmers names in every county in the USA and see how many dollars they are receiving in subsidies from the tax payers.

Here is a link to get you started: http://farm.ewg.org/farm/top_recips.php?fips=18000&progcode=total&yr=2004

[B Calm]

26. Here is the Iowa link

http://farm.ewg.org/farm/region.php?fips=19000

[My Good Babushka]

31. It bothers me a lot

that caring for children is considered "not doing anything" as a stay-at-home mom I get that "so you don't work?" a lot. Why should anyone get a job just to pay someone else to deliver care to their children? (Just for the record, I do freelance work at night. I paint portraits.)Lots of children only have one parent, and I would be glad to subsidize that parent, so they are able to stay with their children. Too many parents and children are really strangers to one another. It's sad that money is the measure of everything, even in such an educated and enlightened country.