Guest
03-28-2010, 08:05 AM
By any measure, recent crops have produced banner years for farmers as high prices for their crops earned them record net income, even after they paid skyrocketing costs for fuel, fertilizer and seed.
In the past five years alone, the U.S. government has handed out more than $95 billion in agricultural subsidies. The farm lobbyists are known to be among the most powerful in Washington. For that amount of money we could triple the budgets for the Immigration & Naturalization Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI and still have billions left over.
Another comparison might be the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On average since we invaded Iraq in 2001, the U.S. has spent about $96 billion a year fighting those wars. So if we spend roughly $19 billion a year subsidizing farmers, that amounts to about 20% of the entire cost of fighting the war on terrorism and re-building Iraq.
Where do all those farm subsidies go? Did you know that we pay subsidies to grow sugar beets, milk and even tobacco that total in the billions of dollars each year? Did you know that on top of that, the various farm lobbyists have been successful in getting import restrictions made into law? As an example, only 15% of domestic consumption of sugar is permitted to be imported.
So at the same time we're incenting farmers to produce commodities that are used to make food that is really bad for us, we're bitterly complaining about the rapidly escalating cost of healthcare. Any research you do says that obesity, diabetes and heart disease are the leading causes for the health problems of Americans. Those are the medical problems caused by eating lots of sugar and butter and smoking. And at the same time we're complaining about that problem, we're paying farmers to produce more of the commodities that are bad for us.
Not even addressing the issue of our government interfering with the operation of efficient free markets, is this making any sense to anyone? It sure doesn't to me--particularly during a time when we're looking for every dollar we don't have to spend that winds up increasing our deficit and national debt. If I simply had to trade dollars, I'd much rather our government spend the money on slowing the flow of illegal drugs and securing our borders than making a lot of wealthy farmers even richer.
This is another subject that would justify a little research on everyone's part. If we continue to be uninformed, we will have no reason to complain about the actions of our elected representatives.
In the past five years alone, the U.S. government has handed out more than $95 billion in agricultural subsidies. The farm lobbyists are known to be among the most powerful in Washington. For that amount of money we could triple the budgets for the Immigration & Naturalization Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI and still have billions left over.
Another comparison might be the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On average since we invaded Iraq in 2001, the U.S. has spent about $96 billion a year fighting those wars. So if we spend roughly $19 billion a year subsidizing farmers, that amounts to about 20% of the entire cost of fighting the war on terrorism and re-building Iraq.
Where do all those farm subsidies go? Did you know that we pay subsidies to grow sugar beets, milk and even tobacco that total in the billions of dollars each year? Did you know that on top of that, the various farm lobbyists have been successful in getting import restrictions made into law? As an example, only 15% of domestic consumption of sugar is permitted to be imported.
So at the same time we're incenting farmers to produce commodities that are used to make food that is really bad for us, we're bitterly complaining about the rapidly escalating cost of healthcare. Any research you do says that obesity, diabetes and heart disease are the leading causes for the health problems of Americans. Those are the medical problems caused by eating lots of sugar and butter and smoking. And at the same time we're complaining about that problem, we're paying farmers to produce more of the commodities that are bad for us.
Not even addressing the issue of our government interfering with the operation of efficient free markets, is this making any sense to anyone? It sure doesn't to me--particularly during a time when we're looking for every dollar we don't have to spend that winds up increasing our deficit and national debt. If I simply had to trade dollars, I'd much rather our government spend the money on slowing the flow of illegal drugs and securing our borders than making a lot of wealthy farmers even richer.
This is another subject that would justify a little research on everyone's part. If we continue to be uninformed, we will have no reason to complain about the actions of our elected representatives.