Why did our great house of representatives refuse to scale back any of the subsidies being given to American?
November 172009
farmers when they had the opportunity to do so earlier this week?
The farms are raking in the loot now with the all-time high commodity prices, so why do our representatives to congress insist on giving our money away to these big corporate farmers?
giving the taxpayers money away is the sure fire path to getting reelcted
November 17th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
You obviously don’t live in the country, or near any farms…
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November 17th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Check the statistics. The "middle men" get whatever windfall you think commodities are getting. Prices for farmers are still shockingly low. But you’re right about subsidies for a lot of people.
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November 17th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
giving the taxpayers money away is the sure fire path to getting reelcted
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November 17th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
As explained in Federalist # 10, the biggest problem with a government like ours that subsidizes so many things is that the pressure on the government is for more different types of and greater amounts in subsidies. The reason for this is simple. Using agriculture as an example, according to the current budget report issued by OMB (FY 2009), Farm Income Stabilization (the budget term for farm subsidies) is 13.094 billion dollars. This amounts to 0.4796% of total federal spending of 2.730241 trillion dollars (this data is for FY 2007). This means that for every $1000.00 someone pays in income taxes roughly $4.80 pays for these subsidies. Thnk about this. Who is going to pay a lobbyist $100,000 (or more) a year to lobby his case: A taxpayer who would save $48 on a $10,000 tax bill if the program were abolished or a corporate CEO whose company receives more than $1,000,000 per year in subsidies. Obviously it’s the CEO. The fact the benefits of subsidies are concentrated and the cost is dispersed, and thus the pressure is far more likely to come from those receiving subsidies, is a major reason why the men who wrote the Constitution considered the practice of government subsidies per se to be a corrupt practice that the federal government should avoid doing at all costs.
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