Andrew Jackson Democrats http://www.andrewjacksondem.com/ is one of my favorite blogs. The comments by Carolina Dem are always intelligent and fair-minded. I could not resist reprinting a recent post from this great blog about the dangerous farm legislation that is being sponsored by Congressman Ron Kind D-WI. Kind is apparently willing to sacrifice his dairy farmer constituents and eliminate farm subsidies as we know them. This legislation is a slap in the face of rural America and a good example of how some members of Congress can become
representatives from Washington to their constituents rather than the other way around.
Carolina Dem writes:
Farmers and consumers across the country be on notice. Wisconsin Representative Ron Kind, a Democrat, has introduced legislation (H.R. 2720) to end price-based crop subsidies and reduce the $5.2 billion in fixed annual payments that go to grain and cotton farmers.
In place of subsidies, farmers would be allowed to set up IRA-type risk management savings accounts that they could tap in lean years, an idea borrowed from Canada but never popular with U.S. farm groups. The savings from the subsidy cuts - $20 billion over five years - would be put into conservation programs, food stamps and reducing the federal budget deficit.
Kind's legislation is being reviewed by the House Agriculture Committee. Kind argues the demand for biofuels has driven the prices of corn, soybeans and other commodities to the highest levels in a decade, making it harder to justify subsidy programs. He further states the legality of the farm programs under international trade rules have been challenged and may be found to violate agreements with other nations.
Who has the most to lose if this legislation is passed by Congress? The family farmer and the average working American!IRA-like savings accounts protect corporate farmers who can put unlimited funds in their risk management accounts. Under the legislation, money put into these accounts is subject to taxation when farmers withdraw funds; a tax that would disproprotionally affect smaller farmers.
Eliminating farm subsidies would also affect the pocket books of working Americans. We pay relatively low prices at the grocery market because government has committed itself since the New Deal to the American farmer. Placing the control of future market prices in the hands of mega-farm CEO's will bring the same affects on food prices as we see in the oil market.
Government's subsidy program also provides for the buying of surplus agriculture production which in return feeds the nutrional needs of many poor and indigent Americans. If price subsidies are eliminated, market prices will lead to less production and the end to nutritional programs that feed schoolchildren, disabled veterans, etc.
Reform of our farm subsidy program is long overdue, but radically changing the current system to the un-"Kind" proposal by the Wisconsin representative will bring disaster to America's family farmers, consumers, and rural communities. Let us not chance the long-standing, successful program of farm subsidies that has enabled all Americans to prosper for a untried, unfair revolutionary idea that promises to destroy the agriculture production industry in the United States.
http://andrewjacksondem.com/2007/06/26/stop-the-unkind-farm-bill.aspx
representatives from Washington to their constituents rather than the other way around.
Carolina Dem writes:
Farmers and consumers across the country be on notice. Wisconsin Representative Ron Kind, a Democrat, has introduced legislation (H.R. 2720) to end price-based crop subsidies and reduce the $5.2 billion in fixed annual payments that go to grain and cotton farmers.
In place of subsidies, farmers would be allowed to set up IRA-type risk management savings accounts that they could tap in lean years, an idea borrowed from Canada but never popular with U.S. farm groups. The savings from the subsidy cuts - $20 billion over five years - would be put into conservation programs, food stamps and reducing the federal budget deficit.
Kind's legislation is being reviewed by the House Agriculture Committee. Kind argues the demand for biofuels has driven the prices of corn, soybeans and other commodities to the highest levels in a decade, making it harder to justify subsidy programs. He further states the legality of the farm programs under international trade rules have been challenged and may be found to violate agreements with other nations.
Who has the most to lose if this legislation is passed by Congress? The family farmer and the average working American!IRA-like savings accounts protect corporate farmers who can put unlimited funds in their risk management accounts. Under the legislation, money put into these accounts is subject to taxation when farmers withdraw funds; a tax that would disproprotionally affect smaller farmers.
Eliminating farm subsidies would also affect the pocket books of working Americans. We pay relatively low prices at the grocery market because government has committed itself since the New Deal to the American farmer. Placing the control of future market prices in the hands of mega-farm CEO's will bring the same affects on food prices as we see in the oil market.
Government's subsidy program also provides for the buying of surplus agriculture production which in return feeds the nutrional needs of many poor and indigent Americans. If price subsidies are eliminated, market prices will lead to less production and the end to nutritional programs that feed schoolchildren, disabled veterans, etc.
Reform of our farm subsidy program is long overdue, but radically changing the current system to the un-"Kind" proposal by the Wisconsin representative will bring disaster to America's family farmers, consumers, and rural communities. Let us not chance the long-standing, successful program of farm subsidies that has enabled all Americans to prosper for a untried, unfair revolutionary idea that promises to destroy the agriculture production industry in the United States.
http://andrewjacksondem.com/2007/06/26/stop-the-unkind-farm-bill.aspx
2 comments:
Instead of catching Duran Duran at a local ribfest or bat mitzvah, I decided to flip on Al Gore's "Live Earth" concert on Saturday for Simon LeBon and the other musical artists with a social conscience, as self-advertised.
About two hours after stapling my eyelids to my forehead to ensure that I didn't miss single epiphanous second, I got bothered.
It was not the noise pollution from climatologists like Kayne West and the Pussycat Dolls. No, that didn't bother me.
The fact that there was more reasoned reflection at Jonestown than there was on the NBC set manned by Today Show host Ann Curry, that didn't bother me.
Enduring the sanctimony of Alicia Keys calling out the "hate skeptics" for their intolerance of non-peer reviewed scientific findings and spiteful distinctions between hypotheses and conclusions, that didn't bother me.
The delicious irony of watching the Dave Matthews Band, the same eco-friendly Dave Matthews Band that dumped 800 pounds of human waste from their tour bus into the Chicago River during their stop through three years ago (well, maybe the irony wasn't exactly delicious), that also didn't bother me.
Reminiscing about a 1975 Newsweek cover story entitled "The Cooling World" in which the scientific community was then allegedly predicting the next Ice Age and suggesting that, among the options, we consider purposely melting the Artic ice cap, and now 30 years later we're to believe that after 3.5 billion years of life (and 1 million years of human life) on this planet, we are collectively on the verge of going up like a Roman candle because of the amount of Aqua Net consumed by Bon Jovi groupies--no, the fickle nature of the global alarmists didn't bother me either.
What bothered me, what truly bothered me was three words uttered by Al Gore, "Thank you, Leo." "Leo" as in Leonardo DiCaprio who introduced Gore to the global audience.
I'll sign Gore's 7-point pledge. I'll install CFL light bulbs in my home. I'll buy a car that runs entirely on switchgrass. I'll even stop clubbing baby seals. I'll do anything they want me to do as long as Al Gore stops his "hep cat" routine.
Watching Gore keep it real with his Hollywood friends is kind of like watching your dad shake his groove thing at a wedding.
Global cooling, global warming, sign me up for whatever. Just make him stop.
As featured in Human Events
email me at dan@urqmedia.com
Excuse me for wanting a democratic party with backbone, a truly liberal party and not a party of pushovers
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