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. Read more of this post…
So called reasonable safety nets have morphed into multimillion dollar farm investment guarantees and farm profit guarantees. Farmers that do not have to budget for production and marketing risks now have the ability to bid up land prices to record levels. Federal crop insurance along with direct payments and higher crop prices are now providing the financial fuel that is turbocharging land values. The havenots have been relegated to having to compete with those who Congress has determined deserve billions in direct payments, insurance subsidies, and other financial security blankets. Yet Congress continues to be determined to spend billions “to save family farmers”.
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