That some members of Congress are farmers is hardly new. Many of the Founding Fathers worked the land. But as the industrial age transformed America's agrarian society and technology made it possible for fewer farmers to grow more crops on more land, the number of lawmakers actively engaged in agriculture dropped sharply.
We don't have a firm count of how many farmers are serving in the current Congress, but we do know, based on a recent analysis of the Environmental Working Group's Farm Subsidy Database, that 23 of them, or their family members, signed up for taxpayer-funded farm subsidy payments between 1995 and 2009.
This would be a good place to point out that just five crops -- corn, cotton, rice wheat and soybeans -- account for 90 percent of all farm subsidies. Sixty-two percent of American farmers do not receive any direct payments from the federal farm subsidy system, and that group includes most livestock producers and fruit and vegetable growers.
Among the members of the 112th Congress who collect payments from USDA are six Democrats and 17 Republicans. The disparity between the parties is even greater in terms of dollar amounts: $489,856 went to Democrats, but more than 10 times as much, $5,334,565, to Republicans.
One reason for the disproportionate number of Republican lawmakers benefiting from farm subsidy programs is the current scarcity of rural Democrats in Congress -- casualties of the Tea Party wave that swept into office in November of 2010. (This was despite the Democrats' decision to bow to the wishes of the subsidy lobby by passing a status quo 2008 farm bill in a misguided bid to hang on to those seats.)
Several new members of Congress who won with tea party support have been less than eager to talk about farm subsidies ever since the news broke last year that they, or their families, personally benefit from those very taxpayer dollars.
EWG doesn't believe that the payments to lawmakers are improper or illegal. But the fact that so many more Republicans in Congress receive so much more in farm subsidies than their Democratic colleagues does highlight the GOP's controversial decision to spare those programs from the budget ax -- even as it slashes funding for so many others. Consider:
The GOP-led support for subsidies also comes at a time when big commodity farms clearly don't need taxpayer funding.
The farm sector is white-hot, and has generally fared extremely well as recession gripped the rest of the economy. Farm income and prices for commodity crops are soaring. In 2008, $210,000 was the average household income of farms that received at least $30,000 in government payments that year. But according to the House Agriculture Committee and the Republic Study Committee, payments to those farms should stay in place while the record 43 million Americans enrolled in SNAP - millions of whom are unemployed for the first time -- face slashes in the help they get to put food on the table.
It's important to note that two of the Republican senators who collect subsidies -- Charles Grassley of Iowa and Richard Lugar of Indiana -- have been long-time leaders in the effort to reform federal farm programs. Both have fought to right the gross inequity of sending 74 percent of taxpayer-funded payments to the largest and wealthiest 10 percent of farm operations and landlords. The top-heavy support for the biggest operations puts smaller family farms at a serious disadvantage and works against a more diverse and resilient food production system that could stand up against wild swings in weather or global markets -- and provide Americans with a healthier food supply.
Of course, Democratic members of Congress have historically been subsidy recipients too, notably former House Agriculture Committee Chairman Charles Stenholm of Texas and former Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.
Nor is the phenomenon of lawmakers receiving farm subsidies limited to the federal level. Recent media reports have shown that direct payments are even more common in state legislatures in Wyoming, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho and South Dakota.
At EWG, we believe that farmers deserve a reasonable safety net to protect against damage from drought, storms and fickle markets. But the American public's investment portfolio in agriculture needs to change. It's indefensible to provide subsidies to well-off farmers and landowners, especially in the face of a booming farm economy and a federal budget squeeze. Meanwhile, farmers seeking modest federal support to protect water, land and wildlife are being turned away for lack of funds.
We're also committed advocates for government transparency, and it's deeply disturbing that the public's ability to see who gets what from the federal farm subsidy system has been curtailed by the Obama administration. Under the Bush administration, the rules allowed the public to see through shell corporations and paper entities to identify the part owners of subsidized farms and show where the money ended up. The transparency pertained to lawmakers as well. For this analysis EWG was forced to resort to harvesting data from members' disclosure forms. That was an arduous but ultimately worthwhile task when advocating for greater accountability and transparency, and it didn't use to be necessary.
Some Congress members (or their families) collecting federal farm subsidies are major players in the annual farm subsidy drama, others have only bit parts in terms of the amount of subsidies they receive. Overall, the distribution of subsidies among members of Congress reflects the highly distorted distribution of farm subsidies among farmers and landlords in the United States -- between 1995 and 2009, 10 percent of subsidy recipients collected 74 percent of all subsidies.
The current salary for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year, and members enjoy robust health benefits. But whether major or bit players, members of Congress who receive farm subsidies are part of a system that cries out for reform and poses stark choices between helping wealthy landowners or doing right by struggling farm and urban families and the environment.
Read the full list of members of Congress who received big or small checks from the federal government.
Follow Donald Carr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DonEWG
Wenonah Hauter: No Quick Subsidies Fix for Food System
That is a form of WELFAREwe should plant only (CORN-SOY BEANS AND WHEAT) we should get our (COTTON and all other products that grow on the farm should be IMPORTED from (AFRICA)
and we should raise our own BEEF which should not imported from any country.
Giving farmers subsidies is wrong its too easy for this to become a scam for the farmers its a known fact that farmers are notoriously known to be dishonest. Truly IMBUED
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How about the milions of dollars paid as sugar subsidies to a handful of GOP supporter in Florida?
Price supports not only supports a high price for the particular commodity; it forces consumers to pay that high price for it; and it distorts the economy preventing production or use of alternatives.
http://www.sugaralliance.org/images/stories/US-sugar-policy-How-it-Works.pdf
The key features are:
(1) Limiting imports to equal our exports (oh ghastly, US trade protectionism! how terrible that there are US manufacturing jobs!).
(2) Limiting the amount of sugar US producers can sell (to prevent a glut)
(3) Find use for surpluses (i.e. ethanol production) so crops don't just go to waste.
The cost differential to the US consumer is usually insignificant, as well; even the most sugary products (such as cake mixes) have less than 10% of their cost in sugar. Also, anti-sugar-program people like to quote the world dump market price on raw sugar and compare it to the price of refined sugar here, without acknowledging the direct subsidies in the nations that flood the world market or that raw sugar and refined sugar are two completely different products. Finally, built into the US cost are higher labor costs, more ethical labor practices, and much, much better environmental standards than most sugar-producing countries have.
Yet, with STB, those working in the field will be forced to come up with efficient and innovative ways to get the job done; rather than expecting Washington-based politicians work out the specifics of a program with its attending waste, corporate largess and kickbacks; and self-serving laws.
Example: Teachers are not at fault for the current poor academic outcomes. Their fault is defending the current system and blaming politicians and others for mandates and defininig performance standards.
Similarly doctors are not at fault for the less than optimum healthcare system. Except that doctors sit / sat back and allow(ed) individuals with no idea about healthcare develop the system; if we can call our current free-for-all 'a system'.
Expecting politicians to develop a system is permiting every interest group to carve-out 'the beast' to their advantage; and leave the carcass for those at the lower pole of the totem pole to make the best of a difficult situation.
So anybody who thinks of making things efficient can only come to the conclusion of "STB." And forcing those working the system to produce "more bang for the buck" or get out of the way.
When there is no honey in the pot, the flies and roaches will not stop by. If there is too much honey (as in the current system), everybody is fleecing and parasiting the govt-system; and who can blame them?
Welfare should be for the needy, not for the greedy. That's the way I see it.
Howard Galt
A Conscious Conservative
www.conservativeconscious.blogspot.com
Farmers are business owners. Therefore, why should they be given a "safety net" to protect them from "fickle markets" when owners of other types of businesses aren't given a similar "safety net" to protect them from a shift in the market?
For that matter, farmers aren't the only business owners whose business may suffer negative consequences because of the weather. Why should they be given a "safety net" (either in the form of a subsidy, direct government payment or government-subsidized crop insurance) to protect them from financial loss in the event of bad weather when other business owners who also suffer loss of income due to bad weather aren't given a similar safety net to protect them against such a loss?
This is why. We don't want staple foods to experience a run on cost due to a bad harvest following a great one, like happened with Napa Cabbage in Korea this past year. A staple of the Korean diet, the price of cabbage tripled in one year after few farmers planted it owing to having lost money they year before, and then bad weather took out much of the remaining crop.
On a larger scale, the rising cost of food is a major concern throughout Asia, where it is cited as costing as much as 60% of the budget of lower-income people. Strong food policy to assure abundant and affordable food is critical to national stability. The political rioting in nations such as Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, and other Middle East countries of this year have been strongly associated with rising food prices
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Asian_Economy/ME03Dk01.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-economy/2011/01/spike_in_global_food_prices_tr.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/15/jordanians-protest-over-food-prices
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/30/133331809/rising-food-prices-can-topple-governments-too
Is this still America??? Only the elites "deserve" any kind of safety net??
Sometimes it seems I woke up in a foreign land where there are only elites and slaves.
Makes no sense that those who have so much, need even more. While those who are struggling for survival are deadbeat, lazy, drug addicts, who deserve to lose their jobs, homes and families and deserve no safety net at all, they should all die quickly, right after they produce some white children. Sorry if I sound bitter, it's difficult not too at times.
when the house passed their first salary increase, they did it in the dead of night, so they would have time to concoct a BS story. I remember at the time, their coup was that they couldn't live on their 85K salary and they figured if they asked us, we'd tell them tough, We're living on 15K and less. The guys who decide on our safety net, have loads of experience, they have one of the best safety net programs uncle sam has ever put together. We are getting screwed royally and if we don't put out the fire soon there will be nothing to save. Semper Fi
Following WWII concerned about having enough wool to make uniforms Congress created a wool subsidy. Uniforms stopped being made of wool in 1960 but the subsidy didn't stop until 1995 and even today wool producers can receive special assistance loans from the govt. But when the subsidy was cut some of the smaller and less efficient wool producers were driven out of business and that was unfortunate but it isn't the responsibility of the American taxpayer to keep them in business.
Maybe after we tackle this subsidy maybe we can go after all other forms of corporate welfare.
When you see seed corn signs along the highway, it is for test plots and advertising for the seed dealer. The farmer owns the corn growing in the field, not a corporation.
It is a little bit wrong to say that livestock producers haven't benefited from farm subsidies. These subsidies allowed livestock producers to buy corn cheaper than the cost of production.
Another issue is the WTO compliance factors, which actually allow direct payments easier than anything else. Most farmers really don't like the direct payment part of the program, but that is what congress has authorized.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/farmincome/Sizedefinition.htm
A commercial farm is a "large farm with gross sales of $250,000 or more". $250,000 GROSS isn't that much. Right now the average price of all milk has averaged $17 / cwt. In 2006 the average cow produced 19,961 pounds of milk, or $3,393 worth of milk. It takes 74 cows to exceed $250,000 gross receipts.
(continued).
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FarmIncome/govtpaybyfarmtype.htm
By the numbers, "rural residence farms" account for 1/2 of all farms receiving government payments. What is a "rural residence farm"? Well, its the polite term for "hobby farm"... a farm where outside non-farm income accounts for the majority of household income.. these are not career farmers, nor dedicated full-time farms.
I would like to reiterate that what the USDA terms a "commercial farm" does NOT require incorporation (tax status). It is based solely on the gross sales (not profit) on a standard set in the 1970s and never adjusted for inflation.