"The farm bill will strengthen the farm economy over the long term. It helps farmer independence, and preserves the farm way of life for generations. It help America's farmers, and therefore it helps America." - George W. Bush, May 13, 2002
That's awfully big of you, Mr. Big Government Republican.
When George Bush made his feel-good statement above, he was referring to the 2002 Farm Bill. Among many other redistribution of wealth schemes, the bill established the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) program, which uses taxpayer money to "compensate dairy producers when domestic milk prices fall below a specified level."
The Agricultural Credit Insurance Fund (2004 appropriation: $485 million) provides loans and guarantees for those seeking credit to improve, purchase, or operate farms. What about all those farmers that did well without these loans? Should they have to pay for their competitors mishaps and/or lack of responsibility?
Hoover’s Second Wrecking of American Agriculture Many of the architects of federal agricultural policy in the 1930s – a policy that continues to the present day – thought the Soviet economic system was superior to that of the United States. - James Bovard, April 6, 2006 [LewRockwell.com]
The Consumer Rip-Off Suppose a dairyman wants to sell a gallon of milk for 25 cents less than his competitors, would you want him fined or jailed? Federal Milk Marketing Orders would do just that. - Walter Williams, December 21, 2005 [Capitalism Magazine]
What's keeping our youth off the farms? Annual subsidies, a conservation program and tax laws are blamed for pushing up land costs and contributing to consolidation in agriculture. - Philip Brasher and Anne Fitzgerald, July 24, 2005 [Des Moines Register]
IDFA Opposes Expansion of Costly and Divisive Dairy Program This proposal comes just four months after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) concluded in a groundbreaking report that MILC actually depresses the farm milk price paid to U.S. producers, an effect completely contrary to its intent. - February 4, 2005 [Yahoo News]
Farm money helps Bush as candidates target rural voters Bush's administration announced it was accelerating the distribution of $1.6 billion in payments under a variety of conservation programs. - Philip Brasher, October 23, 2004 [The DesMoines Register]
The Real Farm Subsidy Scandal The lack of USDA oversight is outrageous, given how much America spends on subsidies. From 1995 to 2002 the U.S. taxpayer doled out more than $114 billion to farmers, and in 2002 President Bush upped subsidies to $190 billion over the next ten years. - Nicolas Heidorn, August 9, 2004 [The Independent Institute]
Black Farmers Ask Congress for Compensation In 1999 under the Clinton administration, the federal government agreed to compensate black farmers for decades of racial discrimination that shut them out of billions of dollars in federal subsidies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed to pay at least $50,000 to each eligible black farmer. - Randy Fabi, July 20, 2004 [Wired News]
Farm Subsidies vs. National Security Millions of overtaxed Americans live paycheck to paycheck. And Washington doles out these tax dollars to David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, basketball star Scottie Pippen and former Enron CEO Ken Lay. - Brian M. Riedl, May 27, 2004 [Heritage Foundation]
Another Year at the Federal Trough: Farm Subsidies for the Rich, Famous, and Elected Jumped Again in 2002 Farming may be the most federally subsidized profession in America. The persistence of farm subsidy programs results from the popular misconception that they stabilize the incomes of poor family
farmers who are at the mercy of unpredictable weather and crop prices. Yet a recent U.S. Department
of Agriculture report concluded that, “On average, farm households have higher incomes, greater
wealth, and lower consumption expenditures than all U.S. households.”- Brian M. Riedl, May 24, 2004 [Heritage Foundation]
Farm Subsidies Must Go In Washington, hypocrisy knows no bounds. The latest example is the U.S. government’s response to the World Trade Organization’s preliminary ruling that subsidies to American cotton farmers distort international trade and violate WTO rules. - Sheldon Richman, April 30, 2004 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]
The Great Milk Fiasco Roosevelt-era farm policy lives! Consider: dairy farmers in northern New England dumped 80,000 pounds of fresh milk in a protest against low milk prices. - Robbie Blevins, November 27, 2002 [Mises]
Bush’s Farm Fiasco In May, President Bush signed one of the most wasteful farm bills that Congress has ever enacted. Though the estimated cost of the handouts continues rising ever closer to $200 billion over the next six years, Bush refused to squander any of his political capital protecting the American taxpayer. - James Bovard, August 2002 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]
Farm Bill Folly The new bill would add $50 billion to agricultural subsidies over the next decade. Such largesse is a testament to the power of the farm lobby, even though the number of full-time commercial farmers continues to dwindle. - Christopher Mayer, July 2002 [Mises]
Farm Bill Will Hurt Agricultural Trade The $170 billion farm bill, with heavy subsidies for export crops such as soybeans and wheat, will actually hurt farmers by making it harder to knock down barriers to agricultural trade. - Dean Kleckner, May 9, 2002 [NCPA]
Farm Frolics There is no reason why farming should be exempt from market forces and require the constant largess it now receives from the taxpayer. - Scott McPherson, May 2002 [FEE]
The Real Threat from the Farm Bill American producers besiege their elected officials to ensure that Congress transfers as much wealth from other sectors of the economy as possible. - Jason M. Thomas, April 9, 2002 [Citizens for a Sound Economy]
Farm Reform Reversal Farm subsidies are not good for either taxpayers or the agriculture industry itself in the long run. Subsidies induce overproduction, which pushes down prices and creates demand for further subsidies. - Chris Edwards and Tad DeHaven, March 2002 [CATO]
Gargantuan Farm Bill Distorts Markets The Daschle-Harkin farm bill up for debate in the U.S. Senate would add $73.5 billion in spending over 10 years on top of the $98.5 billion that would go to maintaining current programs. - Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), January 21, 2002 [NCPA]
Down on the Farm Bill: A Lesson in "Trickle Up" Economics Think about this the next time you hear lawmakers say we can't afford another tax cut. The money's "available" for them. - Edwin Feulner, January 7, 2002 [Capitalism Magazine]
Taxpayer Handouts in the Name of "National Security" Current beneficiaries of taxpayer handouts to "poor" farmers include: Ted Turner, whose five-year take was $176,000. The five-year take for Scottie Pippen was $131,000, David Rockefeller $352,000, Rep. Doug Ose $149,000, Rep. Marion Berry $750,000 and Hancock Mutual Life Insurance $211,000. - Walter Williams, December 20, 2001 [Capitalism Magazine]
Farm Subsidies at Record Levels
As Congress Considers New Farm Bill There is little justification for the special hold that the agricultural industry has on tax- payers' wallets. Other industries, such as the high-tech industry, are also risky and subject to large price swings but do not receive large-scale government subsidies. - Chris Edwards and Tad DeHaven, October 18, 2001 [CATO]
Real Emergencies and Farm "Emergencies" "The reality is that farming is not in an emergency, and subsidies simply enhance middle class farm lifestyles at the taxpayers' expense." - Chris Edwards and Tad DeHaven, October 8, 2001 [CATO]
The Gravy Train That Is Farm Welfare When the 1996 "Freedom to Farm" law was enacted, farm subsidies stood at $6 billion. The goal of the law was to reduce that to $4 billion by 2002. Instead, subsidies more than tripled to more than $20 billion a year for the last three years. - Chris Edwards and Tad DeHaven, August 23, 2001 [NCPA]
The harsh lesson of tobacco subsidies Most Americans are not familiar with the array of government protections that control how tobacco is grown in this country. - Bernard Baker, May 2001 [LP]
Socialism Does Milk Good? Socialism is dead in the former Soviet Union, but if you live in New England, it is alive and well in your grocer's dairy case. The price you pay for a gallon of milk is not determined by competition and the free market. It is set instead by a cartel called the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact, which was created for the explicit purpose of overcharging New England consumers in order to make rich dairy farmers richer. - Jeff Jacoby, April 25, 2001 [Capitalism Magazine]
Farm Subsidies top $28 Billion The federal government distributed a record $28 billion in direct payments to farmers last year, accounting for nearly 50% of all the money made by American farmers in 2000. - Keith Ashdown, January 9, 2001 [Taxpayers for Common Sense]
Farm Credit Fraud - James Bovard, January 2001 [Foundation for Economic Education]
A Costly Abundance Of Sugar The U.S. Department of Agriculture is offering to give farmers government-owned sugar in return for destroying part of their sugar crop this year. - Bruce Ingersoll, August 3, 2000 [NCPA]
Sweet Deal For Sugar Growers, Raw Deal For Consumers Congress' coddling of the U.S. sugar industry is a prime example of how government meddling can up-end markets, impose higher costs on consumers and fleece taxpayers -- while lining the pockets of the wealthy and politically well-connected. - unknown, May 23, 2000 [NCPA]
Appeasing the Corn God "The truly amazing thing is that the corn bribes don't make the farmer any better off. But then again, neither did the snake oil the country rubes used to buy, but that didn't stop them from buying ever-larger quantities of it every time another shyster salesman came to town." - Jerry Taylor, August 23, 1999 [CATO]
Freedom to Farm Washington To the GOP, freedom to farm means freedom to subsidize. - James Bovard, January 1999 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]
The High Cost of Farm Welfare (a review of the book by Clifton B. Luttrell) example: "Luttrell pinpoints numerous inconsistencies and inefficiencies of price supports, subsidized credit, and other farm programs. For example, milk, sugar, and peanut programs raise food prices to consumers. At the same time, more than $10 billion is spent on food stamp programs to make food more available to lower-income consumers. Again, while espousing self-help and providing foreign aid to assist less-developed sugar-producing nations, the United States has impeded economic development in these countries, notably in the Caribbean area, through sharp decreases in sugar quotas which reduced their economic independence."
Milk Cartel Economics "If you're wondering why the cost of milk shot up this summer, you can thank Congress." - John McClaughry, December 1, 1997 [CATO]
Freedom to Farm Act "The 'Freedom to Farm Act' signed by the President earlier this month contains language 'to ensure the benefits of popcorn are available to the people of the United States' by 'strengthening the position of the popcorn industry in the marketplace.' Those truly interested in returning farming to market-based economics say such ludicrous provisions are indicative of the timidity of the Farm Act. They charge that its reforms are more illusory than real, and less permanent than might be expected." - Former Gov. Pete du Pont, April 30, 1996 [NCPA]
The Farm Program Fiasco Relatively poor American taxpayers pay relatively rich American farmers billions of dollars each year not to grow food. - Dominick T. Armentano, August 1991 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]
Farm Bill Follies of 1990 Taxpayers will probably be forced to pay another $100 billion or more in farm aid, and consumers will pay another $50 billion or more in higher food prices if Congress extends existing subsidy programs another five years. That will mean spending the equivalent of more than $400,000 for every full-time farmer in the United States. - James Bovard, July 12, 1990 [CATO]
The Real Thing? - Peter Christensen, July 4, 2005 [LewRockwell.com]
Bad Policies Fuel Midwest Gasoline Prices Oxygenated fuel mandates are a thinly disguised handout to corn farmers, who produce the oxygenate (ethanol) relied upon by the Midwestern market. - Jerry Taylor, June 22, 2000 [CATO]
Life Savers takes business to
Canada over sugar costs Despite the public embrace of free trade politics, the politics of agriculture argues against any reversal of the historic trend of strong government support of subsidies and, in the case of sugar, tariff protection. And the message to many sugar buyers is don't expect any relief. - Tim Jones, January 30, 2002 [The Chicago Tribune]
Ending Farm Subsidies Wouldn’t Help the Third World? It Just Ain’t So! Ending first-world farm subsidies, as Lind suggests, would greatly benefit consumers and taxpayers in rich countries. However, ending policies that distort world trade in agricultural products—contra Lind—also is critical to poor countries. - E. C. Pasour, Jr, April 2004 [Foundation for Economic Education]
Farmers Should Oppose Socialism Regardless of their own good intentions, these farmers are hoeing the wrong row. Socialism, not racism, lies at the root of America’s agricultural woes. - Scott McPherson, July 2002 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]
Farmers: Get a Job! In other words, farmers don't warrant special treatment. Capitalist technological advances have made it possible to grow more food on less land and with fewer farmers. Why don't we face it already? - Sheldon Richman, February 2002 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]
Farming on Our Own My husband Jerry and I are farmers in Corvallis, Oregon...We do not, as a matter of principle, participate in any government farm programs. We made that decision years ago, and we have never regretted it. - Deanna Dyksterhuis, 1995 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]
