Why would we want to be promoting their opinions on DU? While it may be appropriate to review and refine the farm subsidy programs, eliminating them altogether could cause considerable hardship in many rural areas. Some farmers are wealthy. Big corporate farms shouldn't get subsidies. But many farmers aren't rich at all, nor are many of the business in small towns that depend on them, Farming is a tough business that is subject to many variables (e.g., weather, crop prices) that are beyond the farmer's control. You can have a great season one year and a huge loss the next (I am expecting next year's prices to suck deeply and a lot of small farmers to struggle). Let's not use the Cato Institute's libertarian crap as an argument for... anything.

lives on the property and runs the farm

They rent about a third of those acres to a neighbor as cow pasture for $3000 a year.

This is the only rural activity that takes place on their property and yet they receive $6000 a year farm subsidy.

This is a couple who have a combined annual income of $400,000 - $500.000 a year from their jobs.

and make less than 30 grand and in some cases have no running water or broadband cable.....

The average income of many farms in the deep south is 10 grand and under.....

I don't mind my taxes helping to build infrastructure for these folks. Don't care what color they are or their political leanings.... In fact, it would be great to say a progressive poitician makes certain things happen

Butz model that favors corporations and over-production.

at least not in then sense that many folks think of them. They are infrastructure spending. They pay for infrastructure that in many cases the communities are too poor to pay for. I thought this was something progressives championed. A lot of this spending pays to help new and beginning farmers, many of whom are looking to farm in a more sustainable way.

And I get tired of progressives saying we should return to the ways of the new deal. The new deal was a new radical idea in its time. Shouldn't we be coming up with new and radical ideas of our own?

sure we could come up with something new and radical ideas of our own but using a sound program and then analyzing it's short-comings and implementing improvements would be a good start.

...and every time I drive by, I fantasize about erecting another sign next to it reading:
"Ask me about my government subsidies!"

Good one. Or when they go on about welfare and food stamps ask them if theyre also against rural subsidies and farm subsidies redistribution of wealth.

What are those ways?

Not financially, that's for sure. Not in access to things that tax dollars pay for -- municipal water, sewer, fire, police, schools, EMT, public transportation.

My friend lives in the Adirondaks. The power lines owned by the utitlity company were taken out in an ice storm. They told him he would have to pay $30,000 to have them put back up. Would that ever happen to someone in the suburbs?

http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/dispatch/pov_myths.htm

I guess that program has been cut by the GOP since eh?

Adirondak means "bark eater" -- one who is so hard up for food that they strip trees, boil and eat the bark.

My friend's solution was to master solar, wind and micro-hydro. He has a business now, consulting and selling power generation to others.

Agriculture in the US continues to change and it is very difficult to make a living at it. In my county there are apple orchards that don't even get tended or picked because fruit comes in from China cheaper than we can take it off the trees. Subsidies were traditonally used to help keep farmers in business during lean years and that is a good investment for our tax dollars. We have the cheapest food in the world but the human toll is large -- migrant labor ( a political football), farmer suicides, and many struggling despite long hours of hard work that no one else wants to do (especially those who really know what it takes).

One of many:

Rural communities are hurting. Yes some of them are conservative but there are a hell of them that are not and are really hurting

I was hesitant to post in the whole "South" is evil threads but this is bullshit. I was born and raised in a northern liberal city and I am now a farmer in the deep South.

These programs help pay for streets and libraries and to help defray the cots of bringing internet to communities that are not connected. Sure there is some misuse but if you are going to tolerate it in the SNAP program, understand it goes on here

Do you know who lives in the deep south......poor agrarian Blacks and Whites and increasingly Hispanics. They don't get million dollar subsidies and these programs are meant to bring a way of life to many communities that we all take for granted. I really wish folks posting on a liberal board would take the time to know what the "rural" south is all about

And then cook the goose.

Very depressed areas with poor jobs and low incomes.

Subsidies to big farmers are overblown, but some of these other programs are quite functional. And I don't trust any position paper that ignores the realities.

We have special programs for poor urban areas, and I don't see why we shouldn't have some for poor rural areas.

If you look at a list of the poorest counties, they are mostly rural:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_poorest_places_in_the_United_States, '

Population is the last number in parentheses in that list.