More than anything else, this tells me that lawmakers aren’t terribly serious about balancing the budget. Bill Straub, writing for the Evansville Courier Press, tells us:
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have voted to slash programs affecting everything from poison control to Big Bird in their crusade to corral the $14 trillion national debt, but one item in the federal budget managed to sail through untouched — the farm subsidy program.
. . .
Many Republicans in the lower chamber, though committed budget cutters, hale from farm states where subsidy cuts would not be appreciated.
Cutting poison control center funding but not agricultural subsidies? I understand you’re going to prefer cutting funding that benefits people who voted for the other guy, but this seems beyond the pale.
Chances are many of those legislators are receiving farm subsidies. Former senator Mills, one of the most vocal “taxes are out of control” state legislators in Indiana has been on the federal farm dole to the tune of ~$3.6 million over the last 15 years, 6th highest in Indiana.
Check farm subsidy info here: http://farm.ewg.org/
Here it is broken down by congressional district:
http://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=total&page=district
My first Micro Econ prof in college(25 years ago) spent three weeks detailing how farm subsidies should all be removed and farmers would come out ahead in the end.
Clearly I don’t remember the details of his arguments but I remember he made a strong case.
-daron
Not defending farm subsidies (I own a few acres so do partake) but do believe they very much need to return to reason for original implimentation and that is as a floor. Farmers have generally been price takers and very much at the mercy of markets. As marketing outlets have been severely reduced the flexibility of alternative marketing has been greatly reduced and the same situation exists in vendors farmers depend on for inputs (both ends (sellers of goods and services and buyers) operate more in a market they control). Also, farm subsidies have encouraged some uneconomically sound decisions by some producers of some products. Both line, a safety net for farmers has served the nation’s consumers pretty well (we may bitch about food prices but several factors to consider including degree of processing, amount of out of season foods we expect at the grocery, etc…) in that the U.S. has the least expensive and most plentiful food supply in the world—and a part of that is because of the existence of a survivial floor on prices. All that said, with current prices of commodities there is no need for farm subsidies or attempts to control production by means of such payments.
I would say having a floor price for farming would be MUCH better than today’s method of just throwing cash at farmers and screwing up the free market.
I can’t understand how anyone can think they’re a capitalist and support subsidies like that.