The Farm Bill and You

[ThomWV]

In the last two weeks I've seen more information provided on TV about the farm bill than I've seen in the last 10 years. I was wondering if it was sinking in for other people just what a big deal this bit of legislation is? Have you paid any attention to it, were there any surprises for you if you found out about it or is it something that you haven't been exposed to very much?

[GoneOffShore]

1. It's highly important, but everyone here will ignore it.

No time right now to comment further(work, not DU), but I hope to re-visit the issue soon.

[ThomWV]

2. I didn't know much about it but I was just awestruck

The amont of money involved, the outright fraud, the handouts to the already rich. Oh, and the pure and simple waste that is created by this monster.

[fed-up]

3. I live in the Central Valley of Calif and am very aware of who gets what...nt

[warpigs]

4. See what/who the payouts are

http://farm.ewg.org/farm/

In this site you can search for payouts by Representative District/County.

[underpants]

5. I have tried to but most of it is being worked out behind the scenes

and I have read exactly that in articles. I do know that there is going to be some subsidies of fruit and vegetables or at least more.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/04/farm_bill_update_taxing_matter.html

Farm Bill Update: Taxing Matters
Back in 2002, then House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest (R-Texas) helped engineer tens of billions of dollars in new spending for agriculture in a massive new farm bill that was denounced by fiscal conservatives. Combest's pivotal role in outflanking a reform faction and bringing President Bush on board for the increased spending was detailed in a 2006 Post series on waste in agricultural subsidies.

This week, in an ironic twist, the current chairman of the committee, Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), has emerged as the budget hawk -- fighting to pare billions of dollars in Senate-backed spending and tax breaks in an effort to save the faltering legislation. The concern of Peterson and a bipartisan group of farm state lawmakers in the House is that Senate greed could sink the whole bill.

Peterson's main gripe is with the Senate's insistence on adding $2.5 billion in tax breaks for timber interests, conservation groups, biofuels producers, wind farmers, and others. Retired farmers selling their land could spread out capital gains over 20 years, and would be excused from paying self-employment taxes on federal payments they get for putting land in a national conservation reserve.

Even more controversial is the Senate's inclusion of the Equine Equity Act, which allows faster depreciation of race horses. Peterson warned that could help wealthy Saudi princes. But Sen. Charles R. Grassley (R-Iowa) responded that Amish farmers would be helped by another part of the act that enables them to take a long-term capital gain on workhorses held for more than a year.

[ThomWV]

6. I wonder how a person goes about Screaming on the internet?

Grab hands full of hair and pull out by the roots I guess.

[GoneOffShore]

7. I'm kicking this to see if anyone else will drag themselves away from GD-P

Or as I like to think of it The New, Big, Bright, Shiny Thing Show, watched for the most part by Sister Flaming Machete of Courteous Charity and Brother Musket of Tolerance. They are charter members of The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Outrage. Some of the other members are Sister Immaculate Shotgun of Courteous Truth and Brother Honorable Broadsword of Warm Mercy.

[Tashca]

8. I saw this earlier

I have been thinking about your post. I personally have not seen alot about the farm program recently. I have followed the process for years. This is of course a big issue here in Iowa.
I think the program designed in the thirties was helpful for agriculture. You had price supports that encouraged production controls to keep prices low and commodities in plentiful supply. The food stamp program is excellent and was used to help lower income people with their diets. The idea being that the government would buy up some of the over production to shore up prices. Then be able to supply a good diet to people who qualified. In later years conservation became a huge part...........

Then the eighties hit and the farm crisis. The farm program morphed into a huge feeding trough for Multinational Ag interests.....and Mega-farms. Do you remember hearing at night about saving the family farm??? How these programs will help......of course it did the opposite. It's easy to understand why when you see how the process works. I don't think small family farmers had much input into these programs.

The 80's farm program bailouts were basically a way to bail out the banks.....sound familiar???

[ThomWV]

9. I took a graduate class in Agricultural Economic Policy years ago

I actually have a degree in Agricultural Economics, but I got it decades ago and I never did work a minute of my life as any sort of economist and if there was ever much of anything I knew about it I don't remember it now. There is this one thing though, that entire class was graded on a paper each of us had to write (about a dozen people took the class). The Professor, Mac, walked around the room with a fishbowl that had little crumpled up slips of paper in it. Each person had to reach in and take a slip. Mac wrote down what each person's slip said. Mine was Milk Marketing legislation from 1936 to present (this was around 1980). That was the subject of your paper. Of course there were lots of different subjects. The entire class grade depended on that paper. Mine was one paragraph long. I don't have it anymore but it said quite simply that this was a horseshit program designed to make some very rich people to remain that way and drive everyone else out of business. I got an A in the class. I knew it had to go one way or the other, and A or and F. Hit it lucky I guess. Some things never change.

[Tashca]

10. I agree with your Professor

And with your analysis. It's just taken me 50 years to figure it out. It is all about enriching and protecting markets.

I had a very progressive and wise person explain to me in the early 80's how farm programs really worked....I thought for sure he had tripped and hit his head...He was saying things that I had never heard before. I have never forgotten that little talk and how right he was. I'm just a slow learner I guess.

As I look back on the farm crisis.....if we had done nothing......we would today have many smaller family farms. It would have been a tougher time. We doomed that way of life simply by snuffing it out with Farm policy.

But with that said.....I don't have a problem with the food stamp program and many of the conservation programs.