Kansas Rep. Huelskamp waives fight for subsidies, warns farmers to ‘expect less’

Source: The Washington Post

HILL CITY, Kan. — This is what Washington’s new austerity has brought.

A freshman Republican congressman, himself a fifth-generation corn farmer and his family a longtime beneficiary of government agricultural subsidies, drove through the endless fields of far-flung western Kansas to deliver a difficult message.

“Everybody needs to share,” Rep. Tim Huelskamp told a few dozen townsfolk sitting patiently on the hard wooden benches of the Graham County Courthouse. “If you’re a farmer like me, you’re going to expect less. Something’s going to go away. The direct payments are going to go away.”

Huelskamp appears to be right. Dramatically cutting or eliminating direct crop subsidies, which totaled about $5 billion last year, has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement in the budget talks underway between the White House and congressional leaders of both parties.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kansas-rep-huelskamp-waives-fight-for-subsidies-warns-farmers-to-expect-less/2011/05/21/AGwp18SH_singlePage.html

And they are not in the slightest bit grateful. So I say, cut, cut, cut.

I wonder how this will affect commodity futures trading in grain markets? No doubt, our elected representatives would have asked this question. Strange nobody mentioned it in the article.

as well as Oil Industry Entitlements.

Turn about is fair play.

put more farmers off the land...

We have farmers in our county Democratic organization, including my husband.

Most of my family came from Minnesota. The farmers there are mostly Democrats.

Family farmers depend on subsidies to make ends meet. If they can't sustain themselves, the land will all go to large agribusinesses, who do support the repubbies.

Too many DUers have a knee jerk reaction against farm subsidies. They are largely urban residents, who don't understand how difficult it can be to run a family farm.

which, I might add, give very heavily to the repukes.