Did Joe Miller Ask For Federal Farm Subsidies?

[Count Olaf]

As Mudflats points out, a database designed to aggregate information about such payments by the Environmental Working Group indicates Joe Miller of Alaska has received $14,086 over the years. The Alaska Democratic Party has run with the story, e-mailing press and supporters a link to Mudflats' blog.
http://www.themudflats.net/2010/09/16/farmer-joe-and-the-feds/

The problem for us, and which we are working to sort out, is that we don't know that Joe Miller of the database and our state's congressional insurgent are one in the same. It's not like it's a unique name (19 Joe and Joseph Millers applied for the Permanent Fund dividend this year), and there is some indication there is more than one Joe Miller with farmland in the Delta Junction area.

It'd be great if candidate Miller, a former platoon leader, state and federal magistrate and a practicing attorney, would just clear it all up for us with a simple yes or no: "Yes, I've applied for or accepted farm subsidies," or "No, I haven't. Ever."

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/blogs/political-animal/6841-did-alaskas-joe-miller-accept-federal-farm-subsidies

[Count Olaf]

1. this is absurd!

Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years.

Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual "direct payments," because years ago the land was used to grow rice.

Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.

Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a seed. Mary Anna Hudson, 87, from the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston, has received $191,000 over the past decade. For Houston surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell, the total was $490,709.
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"I don't agree with the government's policy," said Matthews, who wanted to give the money back but was told it would just go to other landowners. "They give all of this money to landowners who don't even farm, while real farmers can't afford to get started. It's wrong."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100962.html