Then I am geniuinely impressed with Republicans and disgusted by Democrats. I would like to end farm subsidies period, though.

Wow, conservatives trying to actually be fiscal conservatives. What a new and exciting concept.

Can a libtard please step up to the mike and explain this?

(Farm) subsidies should be abolished.

It's because of "poor me" corn farmers that cola tastes like ass.

For that, I wish them death.

Good for them. It'll never pass.


It's easy to be a fiscal conservative when you're in the minority party.

Churchill2004: It's easy to be a fiscal conservative when you're in the minority party.

This.

submitter: Wait, what?


I'm going to start submitting every link with this cliche. Apparently, it's the only way to get greenlit.

More than > Less than, dumbasses.

That dumbasses remark was aimed at Congress, not any of you. Sorry if it wasn't clear.

FeedTheCollapse
submitter: Wait, what?
I'm going to start submitting every link with this cliche. Apparently, it's the only way to get greenlit.

I'm looking for articles on fat people using electricity. I figure "Weight, watt?" will be green by the time I refresh the page.

FeedTheCollapse: I'm going to start submitting every link with this cliche. Apparently, it's the only way to get greenlit.

This.

Pretend conservatives postering for the election. If they wanted to be true conservatives they should stop the billion dollar toilet flush in Iraq.

"Wow, conservatives trying to actually be fiscal conservatives. What a new and exciting concept."

You might be confusing "Republican" with "Conservative."

Seems like the dems are actually split on the issue. Some of them want a reasonable cap, some want no cap, and some are enjoying their new (slim) majority position to give something back to lobbyists...

smeegle: Pretend conservatives postering for the election. If they wanted to be true conservatives they should stop the billion trillion dollar toilet flush in Iraq.

Fixed.

Yes, it is very easy to target government spending when you are not responsible for it. If I recall correctly, Bush was supposed to be a small government republican and he and the republican controlled congress ran up the debt.

/don't trust either party on this issue.

smeegle: If they wanted to be true conservatives they should stop the billion dollar toilet flush in Iraq.

Ahem (pops).

To those opposing farm subsidies: Subsidies given for unused land are actually a very good idea, because it encourages farmers to ensure that a certain amount of land is set aside for potential food production. This is important because if the united states is ever cut off from a significant amount of food imports, we still have the means to produce a lot of food within our own borders (this, in my opinion, is why we prop up the steel industry as well). It also prevents overproduction of foods in the short-term. The view that farm subsidies are completely unnecessary is a pretty narrow-sighted one, and is generally espoused by people that only think about the issue in very limited terms.

That said, I would like the subsidy cap brought down to somewhere around 100,000$. Giving money to people that make more than that, while stiffing people earning less is inexcusable.

Most of these 'million dollar farmers' are people who've never farmed in their lives. They buy out family farms from people who can't afford their farm or whose children don't want to be farmers anymore. Then they hire a bunch of people to run the farms, which eventually turn into those mega-farms where they cage a billion chickens in a coop and turn them into egg factories. Eventually the mega-farms lower the prices of goods which puts the squeeze further on small time farmers who can't compete. Wash, rinse, repeat. Growing up in Indiana, I saw it a lot. Many of the farms around where I grew up were owned by a corporation in Colorado.

So yeah, I don't know why the corporate farmers get any subsidies at all. They're the WalMart of farms.

mikeandeichmann: Subsidies given for unused land are actually a very good idea, because it encourages farmers to ensure that a certain amount of land is set aside for potential food production.

We're already the world's largest food exporter. We give the stuff away, or let it rot. Unless we suddenly and unexpectedly double our population or something, it's not much of a concern.

Even if we weren't such a big producer of food, setting aside land for emergency wouldn't be the greatest idea. After all, what happens if we get cut off from imports in, say, December? That's a good six to nine months until we'd have the extra crops planted and harvested.

ceejayoz:
We're already the world's largest food exporter. We give the stuff away, or let it rot. Unless we suddenly and unexpectedly double our population or something, it's not much of a concern.

Even if we weren't such a big producer of food, setting aside land for emergency wouldn't be the greatest idea. After all, what happens if we get cut off from imports in, say, December? That's a good six to nine months until we'd have the extra crops planted and harvested.

Just because we're exporting food doesn't mean we're not importing a huge quantity of it as well. Moreover, it's incredibly unlikely that all our international food sources would be cut off at once, so if it did happen in the winter months we could just increase our reliance on available exporters in the southern hemisphere. The problem is this would drive the price up, and so we would need that extra land 6-9 months down the road to keep us from getting gouged.

Let's pay rich people money not to do shiat...
Sounds like a plan

Lousy soundbite issue because of:

Trade Laws (ours and theirs)
Relative currency strengths
Subsidies (ours and theirs)
Weather
Ecology issues
De facto subsidy of many people's actual (low) food prices
De facto subsidies of other nation's economies
I could go on, but a clueful person should get the picture

Things are not at all perfect, but ripping all the supports out at once would also be disastrous. If you don't like big factory farming now, wait until the only people that have money to keep going are people like ConAgra.

/spoken as a fiscal conservative libertarian.

Oh no, We only made $999,999 this year!

nicoffeine: Oh no, We only made $999,999 this year!

Check the prices of running a farm. Go price a combine. You could invest 5 million dollars and have a drought. Farmers handle a lot of money like cashiers in Vegas handle a lot of money. It doesn't stay in their bank accounts or buy Ferraris.

Reform is needed but can't be done overnight. NZ didn't do it overnight.

jcache: I'm not sure what you thought I was saying, but I was talking about fun with accounting. If there is a limit to subsidies allowed, folks will find a way to get as much as they can. It's the way many people operate.

Yes, I know businesses build capital to cover uforseen circumstances and improve and expand as they see fit.

It is important for the US to be able to produce all it's food internally for reasons already stated, but I don't think we need subsidies to do that.

IIRC there are plenty of crops that aren't subsidized that we still grow quite profitably.

Corn subsidies- and that includes this ethanol bullsh*t and the tariffs on cane sugar- need to die a horrible, swift death. Filling a tank with ethonal requires enough food to feed a man for a year, and we're driving up food prices for poor people around the world. Corn is a staple food product in mexico and several other countries.

On top of that, we're driving up corn feed prices for dairy and beef ranches. And all that nonsense about the noble american farmer as a reason to support farm subsidies- it's just Archer-Daniels-Midland bullshiat. A big, fatass corporation like that can figure out how to make money without having congress ensure their profits. Make them.

$1,000,000 cap, $200,000 cap- either one would make me happy. Just do it.

I remember when the Republicans wanted to get rid of the Estate Tax and the Democrats instead wanted to cap it at $2 million. Republicans cried because that would cause poor family farmers to lose their farms cause they couldn't pay the taxes. So $2 million isn't enough for estate taxes by $1 million is?

ELIMINATE THEM ALL! NOW!!!

jcache: nicoffeine: Oh no, We only made $999,999 this year!

Check the prices of running a farm. Go price a combine. You could invest 5 million dollars and have a drought. Farmers handle a lot of money like cashiers in Vegas handle a lot of money. It doesn't stay in their bank accounts or buy Ferraris.

Reform is needed but can't be done overnight. NZ didn't do it overnight.

Bad analogy. A Cashier in Vegas is to a "Farmer" (That is, to say, somebody who owns a farm) as a Farmhand.is to Steve Wynn. The formers mentioned don't see more than wage of hours worked of the money which they earn or lose from their employers. I agree with the gist of your statement, though. :]

If your an actual farmer making 100 grand a year then you count as what... Like .5 percent of farmers?

I honestly really havent seen many rich farmers.

Abolishing farm subsidaries - BAD
Abolish farm subsidaries for earning > $1 million - Okay
Abolishing gas subsidaries - WOOT.

We're giving subsidaries to a company that made $111 billion in PROFITS last year. Abolish THAT subsidary.

thisispete: Farm subsidies were eliminated here in New Zealand in the mid-1980s. It was hard for the farmers then, but they developed leaner production methods and sounder business practices and now they are prospering. Especially in dairy.

But to be fair, we actually get rain here.

Rain: natures subsidy.