April, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 1: Wasting Taxpayer Money In Every Conceivable Way

Every month since this blog began back in 2009, we have spent some time writing about the insanity, idiocy, ineptness, and wasteful spending of the American political class. Back then, we could usually cover all of the insanity in one post. 

However, over the years, it seems as if the politicians in this country have created more insanity and problems at a faster and faster rate. This has pushed the number of days each month required to cover such insanity to more and more over the years.

This month should be no exception. Even though we spent two weeks last month covering the idiocy and fiascos of Obama Care and political class corruption, there is still enough insanity this month to cover at least a week or so of posts. Today starts the process. Hopefully, at the end of this week of insanity you will feel compelled to join our effort to implement term limits at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Because really, as you will see from the political class incompetence we will document this week, how much worse could it get with a whole new set of people sitting in elected office?

1) Many Americans like to think that we live in a capitalistic society where companies compete fairly in a free market. That is really not true. We live in a crony capitalistic society where cronies and friends of politicians use and abuse those political connections to get favored treatment at the expense of their competitors of the American taxpayer.

This point was recently driven home by a study from an organization called Open the Books. They issued a new report that went to great effort and detail to document all Federal grants, loans, direct payments, and insurance subsidies that the Federal government and political class hands out at taxpayer expense. The amount of money given to each company is relatively small in the context of the multi-TRILLION Federal budget. But when added up together, we see that the American taxpayer is paying out tens of billions of dollars to some to the largest and least needy businesses on the planet.

For example, according to the website, www.openthebooks.com:

• $21.3 billion was doled out in the form of outright income-transfer subsidies to corporate America last year. 
• On average, each Fortune 100 company received about $200 million in such handouts.
• General Electric received $380 million in taxpayer financed handouts.
• General Motors received $370 million in taxpayer funded handouts.
• Boeing received $264 million in taxpayer funded handouts.
• Archer Daniels Midland received $174 million in taxpayer funded handouts.
• United Technologies received $160 million in taxpayer funded handouts.
• The $21.3 does not include the billions of dollars in housing, bank, and auto-company bailouts in 2008 and 2009 since those payments are kept mostly invisible within the Federal government accounting system.
• It also does not include the asset purchases of the Federal Reserve, indirect subsidies such as the ethanol mandate that enriches large agribusinesses like Archer Daniels Midland, or special tax breaks for wind and solar manufacturers.
• About $8.5 billion of these financial gifts were in the form of taxpayer-subsidized loans. The big winners here were Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Ford Motor Company, and other multibillion-dollar corporations whose franchisees who somehow qualified for Small Business Administration loans despite the financial size and power of their parent companies.
• Archer Daniels Midland, the giant agricultural business, got just under $1 billion for USDA farm-program loans which does not include ethanol subsidies, a fancy name for another form of crony capitalism
• The No. 1 federal insurance program, the Export-Import Bank provides subsidizes insurance and marketing aid to such financial giants as Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase with both receiving more than $3 billion in such aid and Citigroup and Bank of America receiving more than $1.5 billion in taxpayer backstop insurance. (Remember, this doesn’t include TARP bailout money.) 
• John Deere, American Express, and even Walmart have historically reeled in taxpayer funded and backed Federal insurance support as well.
• The National Review Online article from March 27, 2014 that documented these findings pointed out that only one of the Fortune 100 companies did NOT receive taxpayer funded support and crony gifts from the American taxpayer over the time frame that Open The Books studied.

This documented $21.3 billion in crony capitalism/corporate handouts comes out to about $185 for each household in the country. Thus, as you are writing your check this month to pay your Federal income tax bill, remember that $185 of that payment is being used to give political and financial favors to the biggest banks, the biggest companies, and likely the biggest campaign donors to the politicians in Washington. 

It is just so unfair that we cannot claim Wells Fargo, American Express, Exxon and all the others as dependents on our tax forms since they truly are dependents, courtesy of the Washington political class.

2) But it is not just big corporations that the American political class wastes taxpayer wealth on. According to an April 1, 2014 article from the Independent Journal Review, the Federal government has recently spent taxpayer wealth on the following dubious projects:

• $3 million to create a safe street crossing for turtles.
• $137,500 for the creation of a video game called “Layoff.”
• $71,623 to study cocaine use in monkeys.
• $3 million for NASA to study Congress, giving hope that we may finally find out what color the sky is in Nancy Pelosi’s world.
• $15,551 to study drunk mice behavior.
• $544,338 to update the Justice Department’s Linkedin page.
• $17.4 million to install broadband capability to serve 30 people.
• $10,000 to develop a moose-themed musical called “Moosical.”

I dare anyone justify to me these kind of expenditures being worthy of taxpayer money. Useless, wasted spending on programs that do nothing to resolve the half dozen major issues facing the country today.

3) But the Independent Journal Review was not done with just documenting these eight wastes of taxpayer wealth. The day before exposing the above eight atrocities of waste, they identified massive wasteful spending by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in any number of areas that have absolutely minimal impact on the vast majority of Americans

Let’s start with the a Federal funded musical play. The NSF has spent nearly $700,000 of taxpayer money on a “climate change-themed theatrical production” entitled The Great Immensity. The theater company “The Civilians” applied for and won a grant in 2010 to produce the play. According to the musical’s website, The Great Immensity is “a thrilling and timely production,” presented by an “investigative theater company.”

Useless spending. The Federal government, especially one of its primary science agencies, should not be in the mode of financing the production of musical plays on an issue that is far from settled in the minds of many, many Americans, including myself.

This NSF musical funding effort was just one of several questionable expenditures that were recently scrutinized by U.S. Senator Lamar Smith of Texas. He recently interrogated the White House “science czar” John Holdren in a committee hearing about how the NSF is choosing to spend its money. Along with the musical, Smith specifically queried asked Holdren about the following questionable and idiotic NSF projects:

• A $15,000 study on the fishing practices in and around Lake Victoria in Africa. In Africa, not America, Africa. 
• $340,000 study on the examination of the “ecological consequences” of early human fires in New Zealand. In New Zealand, Not America, New Zealand. 
• $200,000 towards a three-year study of the Bronze Age. 
• Another $50,000 towards the survey of archived lawsuits from 17th century Peru. Not this century, not America. Three centuries ago in Peru. 
• $20,000 for a study on the causes of stress in Bolivia. In Bolivia, Not America, Bolivia.

Ridiculous wastes of money. If the Federal government is going to have a national science agency, and I question the need for one given the abject failure of the NSF to recently develop and deliver any kind of useful scientific breakthrough or technology despite spending tens of billions of dollars over the years, shouldn’t the projects it is funding be geared to resolving the major issues of our times?

I can think of seven areas where I would want scientific breakthroughs to happen to address the major issues facing most Americans today:

1. Find a cure for the leading cancers of today such as breast and lung cancer.
2. Find a cure and treatment approach for aging diseases such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons, diseases that will ravage our aging population.
3. Find a way to make coal a clean fuel since most of the world will be using it for decades into the future on a worldwide scale.
4. Find a way to treat addiction to break the deadly hold drug addiction has on millions of Americans.
5. Find a way to make clean energy cheaper, more efficient, and more accessible.
6. Find a way to reduce the ever escalating health care costs in this country since it is now obvious that Obama Care will not be able to resolve that issue.
7. Find a way to make existing and new energy sources cheap, plentiful and clean.

If the NSA could fund research that would solve just these seven issues, most of America would be able to pay their tab. However, the political class has allowed the NSF to waste money in New Zealand, Bolivia, Peru, and Africa on projects that are of absolutely no concern to the American public. That is insanity and that is why the NSF should either get refocused on what is important to Americans or be disbanded and their budget redistributed back to Americans.

That will do it for today, the myriad of ways our politicians have found to waste our money on their business cronies and other stupid porgrams and projects. The insanity is just getting started, much more to follow in the next few days.

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

January, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 5: Taxpayers Lose, Farmers Win, NYC Tourism Loses, and Double Agents in Washington

This is the fifth post this month trying to cover the latest political class insanity, idiocy, incompetence, and wasteful spending of the American political class. It is not easy keeping up with these people’ never ending quest to enrich themselves at the expense and freedom of the vast majority of Americans. There antics and failures would be hilarious if they were not so damaging to our freedom and wallets.

The first of this month’s series can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/01/january-2014-political-class-insanity_5.html

1) Think Washington politicians know what they are doing when it comes to economic management, strategy, and policy? Consider the grim findings that were released by the U.S. Census Bureau in mid September:

• During the four years of President Obama’s first term in office, the real median income of American households dropped by $2,627.
• During the same time, the number of Americans living in poverty increased by approximately 6,667,000.
• The year Obama was elected, real median household income in the United States was $53,644 according to the Census Bureau. 
• In 2012, the last full year of Obama’s first term, median household income was $51,017. Thus, real median household income dropped $2,627,or 4.89%, from 2008 to 2012.
• Real median household income dropped in every year of Obama's first term. In 2008, when he was elected, it was $53,644. In 2009, the year he was inaugurated, it dropped to 53,285. In 2010, his second year in office, it dropped to $51,892. In 2011, his third year in office, it dropped to $51,100. And, in 2012, his fourth year in office, it dropped to $51,017.
• In 2008 there were approximately 39,829,000 people living in poverty in this country. In 2012, there were 46,496,000. 
• That is an increase of approximately 6,667,000, or16.73 percent, from 2008 to 2012.
• The number of people in poverty increased during three of the four years of Obama's first term--taking a slight dip from 2010 to 2011, but then rising again from 2011 to 2012. 
• In 2008, there were 39,829 people in poverty in the U.S. In 2009, it climbed to 43,569. In 2010, it climbed again to 46,343. In 2011, it dipped to 46,247. And, in 2012, it climbed to an all-time high 46,496.

Yes, the economy is doing somewhat better but only for certain segments of the nation: those that live and work in the Washington metro area (the “Hunger Games“ syndrome), those that work in the banking and financial industry, and hackers that are fleecing Obama Care’s data systems for identify thieves. The vast number of Americans are substantially poorer and less well off since 2008 despite an energy revolution, record low interest rates for record lengths of time, and record levels of stimulus spending. 

In other words, Washington’s politicians are clueless when it comes to economic matters.

2) On November 27, 2013 the wonderful website Bankrupting American provided some Thanksgiving dinner table topics for discussion relative to what most people were eating. The website pointed out that farm incomes likely increased about 15% just in 2012 alone, rising to a 40 year high. 

A lot of that increase in wealth was not the result of hard work or creative farming but billions and billions of dollars that are given to the farming industry by the Federal government and Washington politicians, all funded by the American taxpayer. However, a lot of these billions do not go to the traditional American family farm. They are awarded to wealthy farming conglomerates, not average farmers. 

According to the Environmental Working Group, the top 10% of American farms suck up a whopping 75% of all Federal subsidies. The average payout for the top 10 percent is $32,043 annually versus $604 for the bottom 80%. Additionally, 62% of farmers do not receive any Federal subsidies. 

Who gets these taxpayer gifts in a time of record high farm profits? The website highlights the top industry segments:

1. American taxpayers spent $84.4 billion on subsidies to corn growers between 1995 and 2012. These funds went to 1.642 million growers for an average payment of $51,400.
2. American taxpayers spent $35.5 billion on subsidies to wheat growers between 1995 and 2012. These funds went to 1.376 million growers for an average payment of $25,799.
3. American taxpayers spent $32.9 billion on subsidies to cotton growers between 1995 and 2012. These funds went to just 264,952 growers for an average payment of $124,173.
4. American taxpayers spent $504 million on subsidies to sugar beet and apple growers between 1995 and 2012. These funds went to about 17,657 growers for an average payment of $28,544.
5. American taxpayers spent $4.1 billion on subsidies for livestock between 1995 and 2012. These funds went to about 815,282 growers for an average payment of $5,029. 

These five examples total out to just over $157 BILLION in farm subsides. Thus, over the 1995 to 2012 timeframe, the average American family paid the U.S. farming industry about $1,400 per household in subsidies. And as the Bankrupting America website points out and what we have previously reported on, most of this money went to large farming conglomerates that earn billions of dollars in revenue and profits every year. Obscene to have this going on when most Americans are struggling and farming as an industry is earning record profits.

Of course, this does not happen unless there is a link between Washington politicians and campaign contributions from large farming business. Consider Archer Daniels Midland as an example, one of the largest agriculture corporations in the world. According to the campaign finance tracking website, Open Secrets: 

• Archer Daniels Midland contributed over $864 thousand dollars to political campaigns last year, placing it in the highest 2% of all contributors to political campaigns.
• Archer Daniels Midland spent over $1.4 million on lobbying in 2013, placing it in the highest 8% of companies with official lobbying expenses last year.

The equation is simple: spend millions in political campaign contributions and receive billions in taxpayer funded subsidies. All while the median income of American households continues to plummet.

3) Political class insanity is not restricted to the Federal wing of the American political class. Consider a recent example of insanity form New York City, courtesy of its new mayor, Mayor Bill de Blasio says. It is no secret that the vast majority New York City’s public schools stink when it comes to providing a good, solid education for public school kids. I am sure there are many other issues including high unemployment, criminal activities, crumbling infrastructure, etc., that the good mayor needs to get to work on. 

But all of these real problems will have to wait. Within four days of his inauguration, the Mayor has declared that the city needs to get rid of horse drawn carriages on city streets, a romantic fixture of New York city for lord knows how long.

I am not aware of any widespread abuse of horses used on New York streets to give tourists rides. If there were, I would be the first to ask for a crackdown on animal abuse. But apparently, according to news reports I have read, it is only the mayor’s opinion that the animals are working under terrible conditions. 

He proposes that the horse drawn carriages be replaced with electric cars so that the New Yorkers who make a living off of the horse drawn carriage business to not lose their jobs. As if visitors to New York cannot wait to get a romantic ride around town in a …electric car. Guess fixing the roads, and schools and crime rate will have to wait New York. Insanity.

4) The Associated Press reported on December 7, 2013 that Theodore H. Moran, a renowned expert on China's international investment, a professor at Georgetown University and a longtime adviser to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence was forced resigned. Why was he forced to resign? After four years, the Federal government finally figured out he has worked as a paid consultant for Huawei Technologies Ltd., a Chinese company the U.S. has condemned as an espionage threat.

Moran had served since 2007 as both an adviser to the intelligence director's advisory panel on foreign investment in the United States. At the same time he was an adviser to the National Intelligence Council, a group of 18 senior analysts and policy experts who provide U.S. spy agencies with judgments on important international issues. Moran had a security clearance granting him access to sensitive government and national security materials.

In 2012, the House Intelligence Committee concluded that Huawei and another Chinese company, ZTE, were a threat that could allow Chinese intelligence agencies to tamper with American communications networks. The committee recommended that the two companies be barred from doing business in the country: "To the extent these companies are influenced by the state or provide Chinese intelligence services access to telecommunication networks, the opportunity exists for further economic and foreign espionage by a foreign nation-state already known to be a major perpetrator of cyber espionage." 

Great, it takes the government four years to figure out that one of its top security analysts and experts was actually working both sides of the fence. The really sad about thing about this security breach is that Moran is quoted in the AP article of saying that he was totally transparent in what businesses he was associated, claming that he told the National Intelligence Council in 2010 that he had a relationship with Huawei. Talk about incompetence.

So, let’s review. American households lose, farming conglomerates win, New York City tourism loses, and a high ranking government security analysts wins by playing for both our team and the Chinese team. Insanity.

That will do it for today. A few more days of insanity should be enough to finally cover the horror and idiocy that that political class created in the past month or so.

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

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

The Fallacy And Disgrace That Are Government Farm Subsidies, Part 1: Taking From The Poor And Giving To The Rich

Before we talk about the latest example of how the Federal government and Washington political class take from the poor and middle class and give to their wealthy political connections and supporters, let’s review a few background realities:

• The national debt is fast approaching $17 TRILLION, or over a $50,000 debt burden for every man, woman, and child in the country. Given the debt situation, no tax dollars should be wasted in any form whatsoever.
• There are over 20 million Americans who are either unemployed or under employed in the country. Given this horrid employment situation, any tax dollars that could retrain Americans for work would be a societal benefit.
• While the average household income for all American households has dropped considerably SINCE THE RECESSION ENDED, the household income of the wealthier households in this country has risen over the past several years.
• Major diseases such as cancers and aging diseases in our aging population still take a horrific toll on our citizens. Any tax dollars that could stem the medical and personal suffering costs of these Americans would be both humane and pay dividends down the road from decreased national health care costs.

I put forth these realities in the context of the Federal government’s farm bill. The August 16, 2013 issue of The Week magazine put forth a scathing and fact filled review of the farm bill and farm subsidies and how waste, stupidity, and political cronyism are all at work with this bill. 

As you read through the following facts, as laid out in The Week’s weekly Briefing column, think about whether the farm bill’s funding is better spent making the wealthy wealthier or if that taxpayer wealth should be repurposed back into the wallets of poor and middle class families to increase their shrinking household income, used to relieve our overbearing national debt burden, retrain Americans for employment, or be diverted into medical research for the pressing diseases of our time. I will tell you ahead of time, based on The Week’s research, any of these efforts would certainly be more worthwhile than  what the Washington political class is doing with our money today relative to the farming industry.

The following facts, realities, and disgraces is what the article, along with other data from cited and related sources, found out to be true:

1) In the past 10 years, the Federal government has given the farm industry $168 billion of taxpayer wealth, used to theoretically protect farmers from the fates of weather, price, and economic conditions.

2) Thus, the average American family annually gives farmers and farming companies/conglomerates about $1500 over that time frame.

3) But this money does not typically go to small, family farms. 75% of the $168 billion payout went to just the biggest 10% of farm-related companies such as Riceland Foods, Inc., Pilgrims Pride, Inc., and Archer Daniels Midland, all hardly quaint, small family farms.

4) As a background fact, in 2012, Archer Daniels Midland’s financial statements show a  gross operating revenue of about $89 BILLION and a profit of over $3.4 BILLION. Makes one wonder why every American taxpayer needs to pay taxes to subsidize payments to a mega-profitable company like this.

5) But it is not just big companies that receive taxpayer farm support. The Week article points out that Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, former President Jimmy Carter, and media mogul Ted Turner also get paid handsomely for the “farm property” they own.

6) Some quick research from the Celebrity Net Worth website  estimates that Springsteen is personally worth $200 million, Bon Jovi is worth about $125 million, Carter is worth about $5 million, and Turner is worth about $2 billion. Which raises the same question that we posed relative to companies like Archer Daniels Midland: why are these fabulously rich people getting taxpayer money under the farm subsidy program?

7) Over the past ten years, farm subsidies have been paid out to over 1,500 residents of Manhattan in New York City. 374 of these payouts have gone to people living in the wealthy and posh Upper East Side of Manhattan, hardly a poverty area or a farming mecca. A sample of those in NYC who have gotten taxpayer farm money include:

• Mark F. Rockefeller (yes, of those Rockefellers) was paid $342,634 NOT to farm his land in Idaho.
• A managing director of Wells Fargo bank.
• A neurologist.

“Payments are going to people in Manhattan who have simply invested in farmland and are about as far away from farmland as you can imagine. That should really make people wonder what on earth has happened to the farm program,” Craig Cox of the Environment Working Group.

8) All farmers have seen double digit growth in the value of their farmland in each of the past three years despite droughts and high temperatures.

9) The average annual household income of farmers is about 60% higher than the average household income of all American families.

10) “The typical American farmer has literally millions of dollars of wealth,” according to Dan Sumer, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Davis. You cannot make that statement for the vast majority of American households who actually pay the farm subsidies.

11) The farm subsidy bill actually pays some farmers NOT to grow crops into order to keep crop prices high, i.e. you reduce supply and prices go up. Thus, the American consumer not only pays for farmers not to grow crops but they then get whacked again with higher prices at the supermarket.

12) As with many Federal government programs, the farm subsidy fiasco was meant to be a temporary short term fix to the problems facing farmers during the Great Depression. Over 70 years later, what was supposed to be temporary is now pretty permanent.

What a disgrace. Higher prices for consumers, more wealth for the wealthy. If any program was ripe for getting terminated in these times of high taxes and higher national debt, it would be the entire farm subsidy infrastructure.

So why hasn’t it been killed for the good of the country? As The Week correctly points out, the only reason it exists is politics. Many of the farmers and farming conglomerates that receive taxpayer wealth are in states that lean Republican. Historically, the food stamp and food assistance Federal programs were hidden in the farm bills of the past, a key aspect for Democrats. 

Thus, the farm bill ensures that  major constituents of both parties get wealthy at our expense while incumbent Washington politicians get continual funding for their perpetual reelection campaigns. Everybody wins except the poor and middle class taxpayers in this country who fund this circuit of corruption. We will explore this corruption more fully tomorrow and why it persists.

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