Cut spending just don't cut my welfare
By gewcew23
@gewcew23 (8007)
United States
November 16, 2010 4:29pm CST
Am I speak of some person who lives in government housing or buys their food with food stamps, no actually I am speaking about Senators and Congressmen who have invested interest in farms that receive farm subsidies. Is it any stretch of the imagination how they will vote when it comes time for the annual agriculture bill.
Let me get two things out of the way before I go on. First is this notion that farm subsidies is not welfare, well I would like to ask you how it is not. If it doesn't fit your definition of welfare then at lest it fits the definition of wealth redistribution. Second is that these lawmaker don't actually own the farm that is receiving the subsidies. Well they directly may not but the farm is owned by a direct relative like parent or child so they do have a reason to vote yes on the agriculture bill.
Alright we are hearing or should be hearing a lot about ways to cut spending some we can wrestle the budget deficit back into line. We have had the past two years a lot of rhetoric about wealth redistribution. We even had a movement call the Tea party that was all about out of control spending. Arising out of this has be some notable politicians one that comes to mind is Congresswomen Michelle Bachmann. Yet I cannot find at any time when Bachmann voted against the agriculture bill. Maybe it is because her in-laws own the Bachmann farms which receive $770,000 over a 15 year time span? Now I am not accusing Michelle of being the only one who does this, I am just using her as an example.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hJbK6whzcXt5byvczK-QyMjaGqLw?docId=fa81aab1b7b142f4bacafe8f5f1f8d26
5 responses
@thegreatdebater (7316)
• United States
17 Nov 10
Gew, do you know that many of the largest farm land owners live in the farming community of Manhattan, New York. In the last ten years investment firms have discovered buying farm land is a great investment, and you have unbelievable tax breaks. I deal with farmers often, and they have mixed feelings about these subsidizes. When farming is doing good, than they don't need them, but when prices go down, or nature takes over they struggle. The unique part of farming is that it usually does much better when the economy is bad because we eat at home more. I do feel that we do need to at least lower the amount of these subsidizes. The another interesting part of this is that if you enacted Cap and Trade, you could totally eliminate subsidizes, and actually make them much more money than their actual crops.
@LaloMomma (3)
• United States
12 Apr 11
Check out the movie Food Inc. I thought it was very interesting and it has a part about the ag bill.
@ParaTed2k (22940)
• Sheboygan, Wisconsin
16 Nov 10
You're right, in cutting spending there should be no sacred cow departments. All of them could lose 5-10% of their budget without affecting the services they are set up to provide.
@EvanHunter (4026)
• United States
18 Nov 10
Never ceases to amaze me the hypocrisy of some people. I know of some people who got over $10-15 thousand a year to grow grass (not sod, just not grow anything at all). They were die hard conservatives and throw a fit over the single mom who gets assistance but gladly took the money.
