Not that he'll get much credit for it, but Bush did something admirable in his new budget:
"The administration now wants to save nearly $6 billion in payments in the next decade, cap annual payments to individual farms at $250,000, and generally rationalize the system."
Many of us having lingering images of federal help for struggling family farmers. Reality is. . .
" Ten percent of farms -- i.e., the biggest ones -- receive 60 percent of the subsidies. . . . the feds could guarantee every full-time farmer an income of $35,000 a year at a cost of "merely" $4 billion. Subsidies now run roughly $15.7 billion annually.Posted by Discoshaman at février 9, 2005 12:04 AM | TrackBack
It's even more insidious than merely "red state welfare". Agricultural subsidies force developing third world agricutural sectors to compete with subsidized first world corporations, thus ensuring their inability to advance.
Major props to Bush for addressing the issue, although I somewhat doubt his ability to get it through Congress.
Posted by: rox_publius at février 9, 2005 05:20 AMYep. I noticed that, but also tend to agree with Rox -- that's an awful lot of pork for an awful lot of districts.
If there's one thing most Dem AND GOP legislators have in common, they fight for their districts. *sigh*
Posted by: Reid at février 9, 2005 09:31 PM