Why are we paying for this?
Entitlement reform isn’t the only area of the federal budget that needs to be addressed. It’s obviously the most important because of it’s size, but there are some common sense things Congress could do right now. Ending farm subsidies should be a priority.
The only reason we continue to subsidize farmers is this nostalgic idea that farmers are the backbone of the nation. Just read this tripe:
Family farmers are being forced out of business at an alarming rate. According to Farm Aid, every week 330 farmers leave their land. As a result, there are now nearly five million fewer farms in the U.S. than there were in the 1930′s. Of the two million remaining farms, only 565,000 are family operations. As established family farms are shut down, they are not being replaced by new farms and young farmers. Very few young people become farmers today, and half of all U.S. farmers are between the ages of 45 and 65, while only 6% of all farmers are under the age of 35.
I’m not concerned. My ancestors used to be farmers. Most people’s ancestors used to be farmers. Thank God that’s not my profession today. This is progress and it’s nothing to be alarmed about. Groups like Farm Aid have propagated the myth that we need to be concerned about a dying part of our economy.
The United States pays out $20 billion in agriculture subsidies. Plus the United States controls the price of milk and sugar. There’s no justification for this to continue. The Daily Plunge has written extensively about Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. His number one priority is to secure as much farm assistance is possible. He’s a big reason we have the ethanol subsidies. Even Al Gore believes that subsidizing ethanol is a bad idea.
The ethanol subsidy should be eliminated immediately. John Stossel agrees:
The time to end the government powered ethanol subsidy has come… and gone… multiple times. It’s an expensive waste of money, and a GAO report confirms that if it is left unchanged, the
… annual cost to the Treasury in forgone revenues could grow from $5.4 billion in 2010 to $6.75 billion in 2015.
The government has tried to promote the growth of ethanol since the Energy Tax Act of 1978. Additional waste comes from the renewable fuel standard which:
requires overall transportation fuels in the United States to contain certain volumes of biofuels…
So not only has Congress passed legislation that forces consumers to give their gas money to ethanol companies, but also they provide a tax credit to these same companies, allowing them to “double dip” in your pocket.
Before being elected in 2008 then Senator Obama voted for the current Farm Bill. There’s no hope he’ll rise to the challenge of eliminating this vast waste of taxpayer money. It’s truly staggering how many people are receiving some kind of government welfare.
San Antonio has declared war on fat, according to a recent article in the San Antonio Express-News. Aided by $15.6 million in federal stimulus dollars to combat obesity in this restaurant-heavy city that has also been tagged as one of the fattest cities in America, San Antonio is spending our tax dollars with wisdom.
Remember Doritos! Remember Dr. Pepper! Remember the Alamo!
First up is the elimination of sugary and fatty confections and beverages in the city’s 250 beverage vending machines and 75 snack dispensers. Instead, San Antonio residents will get to choose from a delicious smorgasbord of waters and diet drinks. Yummy! But that’s not all! Bags of chips will have to be less than 1.5 ounces.
Fortunately for city employees, the article notes, they won’t be banned from consuming fatty foods and drinks at work. But one wonders how far off that ban is, and when government will begin regulating a citizen’s intake of fatty foods and drinks. It’s a Utopian future of organic whole grain rice cakes harvested locally by illegal immigrants, washed down with government-approved water.
“I asked the staff to remove the high-calorie soda drinks from our vending machines,” [City Manager Sheryl] Sculley said. “I’m a fitness person, and I care about our employees, and I want them to be healthy. And I think this is a very small gesture.”
I have a small gesture in mind as well. It involves the strategic deployment of the middle digit of my hand in the general direction of City Manager Sheryl Sculley and the other nanny ninny busybodies who want to confiscate my sugar, fat and calories. You can have my Doritos and Dr. Pepper when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
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