The Fallacy and Disgrace That Are Farm Subsides, Part 2: Why Do The Subsides Persist?

Yesterday we explored the inner workings of the latest farm subsidy bill being cooked up in Washington. The bill continues the ugly tradition of using taxpayer wealth to serve the political needs of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. This perversion of what was supposed to be a temporary government program during the Great Depressions has morphed into a corrupt, take form the poor and give to the rich government redistribution of wealth.

As we reviewed yesterday, struggling farmers are no longer the primary beneficiaries of the government's farm subsidies. Most of the money goes to giant farming companies whose revenue streams are in the billions of dollars annually. 

Individual millionaires in America who just happen to own what the government considers farm land get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and in some cases, millions of dollars, to not farm. These rich Americans getting farm subsides include rock and rollers Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, former Presidents like Jimmy Carter, media magnates like Ted Turner, and thousands of people who live in NYC, hardly prime farm country. 

Today we will consider the reasons why these egregious examples of enhancing the rich continue to take place. Consider Archer Daniels Midland. According to the Open Secrets website that tracks campaign contributions, in 2012 Archer Daniels Midland-related campaign contributors forked over $864,374 to political campaigns and politicians. This ranked them 472 of 21,023 companies which contributed campaign funds, which put them in the top 2-3% of all political donors. 

They also spent over $1.4 million in government lobbying expenses in 2012, which ranked them 350 of 4,374, which put them in the top 8% of lobbying entities. Is there any surprise then that they are a major recipient of taxpayer farm subsidy wealth when they funnel this kind of money to the Washington political class for the benefit of their bottom line?

Springsteen, Turner, and Bon Jovi have been major supporters of the Democratic politicians in Washington over the years. The Rockefeller family has historically been involved in politics on the Republican side. You scratch my back with subsidies, I will scratch you back with political campaign funding, and together we can both screw the American taxpayer. 

Disgraceful and pathetic. Which gets us back to our original set-up: Should the Federal government continue to support a very small number of wealthy American companies, wealthy American celebrities, and wealthy American farmers with billions and billions of taxpayer dollars every year or should the money be repurposed to serve a much wider array of American citizen interests such as debt control, tax relief, job retraining, or disease prevention and cure research?

To me, that answer is simple and has two parts. First, farm subsidies, while they may have had a purpose seven decades ago in the midst of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, they have no role today for the vast amount of the American farm industry since most of the American farm industry is no longer small American farms. This is a political fundraising front, nothing more.

If society thinks it is a good idea to support family farms, than that is what the program should be about. But it should be for active farmers, not celebrity farmers, it should be for non-millionaire farmers, and it should not be for farming entities that have tens of billions of revenue dollars flowing to it annually.

Second, given that seven decades worth of American politicians have not had the gumption, integrity, and intelligence to stop this rip off of the American taxpayer, the need for term limits is even more obvious. We must find a away to eliminate the perpetual incumbent reelection cycle that needs the farm subsidy program to help fund and finance the perpetual reelection campaign. Term limits would go a long way to ending this needless waste of taxpayer money.

You can join this term limit effort at:

www.howmuchworsecoudlitget.com

Because really, today we are already unnecessarily giving our taxpayer money to larger corporations, rich musicians, rich farmers, wealthy New Yorkers, bankers, and doctors, how much worse could it get if we had term limits for all Washington politicians?

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w