Bush and the Farm Subsidies

OK, so I read this USATODAY Op/Ed on Yahoo. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=742&e=1&u=/usatoday/20050223/cm_usatoday/wealthygrowersnotsmallfarmersharvesthandouts

Seems like Bush is, uncharacteristically, doing something that actually makes good sense.

Any thoughts/caveats?

Thanks in advance!


ARTICLE EXCERPT:

It is fraught with abuse and does little to assist the "family farmers" who are supposedly the program's beneficiaries. The top 10% of recipients - mostly huge agribusinesses - collect almost 70% of the payments.

Far from helping small farmers, these corporations buy them out - and then qualify for even larger subsidies.

More than 90% of farm subsidies go to the growers of such politically favored staples as wheat, corn, cotton, soybeans and rice. Because payments increase as a farmer plants more, these handouts encourage farmers to grow surplus crops. Other farmers are paid not to grow crops as a way to conserve the soil.

Bush's 2006 budget contains these reasonable but overly modest proposals:

• Cut all farm payments by 5%.

• Limit price-support subsidies to $250,000 per individual, down from the current $360,000 cap.

• Require subsidized farms to purchase crop insurance rather than expect the government to bail them out if bad weather lowers their profits.

• Close loopholes to ensure that only those eligible for subsidies receive them.

Bush says his plan would save $5.7 billion over the next decade. That's not much, considering that subsidies cost taxpayers $131 billion over the past decade, an average of about $450 from every person in the country. And it wouldn't make much of a dent in record federal deficits in the neighborhood of $400 billion a year. But at least it's a start.

of food go down. Then the poor in America can be paid less in wages. Supply side Nirvana.

Personally - I want to see the folk in Africa participate in the world food markets. But with 20 Billion people in the world - I somehow doubt that American farmers are not going to be growing anything. They will just face competition. And so there will be huge factory farms, and small family farms. And nothing in between.

I wish there was a USA government to explain what it all means to people rather than to be smoke & mirroring the whole time. It sure seems as if 'the less Americans are informed... the better off the Bush government is". And the leaders in the south are running around getting married for a second time rather than talking about what World Markets will mean for farmers and how to prepare. Should you go into debt? Should you not go into debt? Which is it Bush? LEAD INSTEAD OF LIE!!

:cry:

it seems you're saying that when they cut the subsidies, less people will be farming and America will end up having to import food?

world and buy stuff made from all over the world, how could the food industry not follow suit. I mean deflation will mean in ten years you coat will cost less than a grapefruit. So they had to do it.

Also it will mean that some wealth will finally be created in the poorest farming communities in the World. So it is quite a change.

I just get so sick of the President not explaining anything.

on the size of farm that would qualify for any government subsidy. Make it 1000 acres. Eliminate the incentive to form these huge korporate farms sucking off our tax $$$. Show that someone's really looking out for the small farmer.

in Montana. She kept the books. The old man and the boys run a tab in one bar in town that averaged $1000/month. Every purchase that anyone made, the receipt went in a box for the accountant, since EVERY thing was a farm expense. This family farm received,over one five year period, $653,000. Farm subsidies do need a very close look but when the congress comes back to town we'll likely see a change in that particular cut.