Senate passes half-trillion dollar farm bill

[cawacko]

Could someone who understands the farm bill better than I please explain it to me. From my limited knowledge perspective this is up there with the worst type of corporate welfare we have and there seems to be very little distinction between the two parties on the issue as they are both for it.


(From the article)

"""Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said the bill would support 16 million American jobs, save taxpayers billions and put into place "the most significant reforms to agriculture programs in decades." But it would still generously subsidize corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, sugar and other major crops grown by U.S. farmers."""


I could obviously be wrong but this quote doesn't pass the sniff test to me. What significant reforms are there in this bill? It seems like all the other farm bills to me. And we're spending half a trillion dollars yet supposedly saving billions? Again, having a hard time buying it.


http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Senate-passes-half-trillion-dollar-farm-bill-4591407.php

 

[leaningright]

There is almost zero difference between the two parties on this. It is a cash cow for too many congressional districts ... and is most definitely is corporate welfare.

 

[Bonestorm]

There is almost zero difference between the two parties on this. It is a cash cow for too many congressional districts ... and is most definitely is corporate welfare.

The odd thing is that while both parties love it, the farther left and farther right people pretty much uniformly hate it.

 

[Topspin]

Super powers need food and oil!

 

[tekkychick]

The odd thing is that while both parties love it, the farther left and farther right people pretty much uniformly hate it.

Which (to go way off topic) is why I think it's such a shame the Tea Party movement got co-opted by Koch Brothers and their ilk.

When the TP'ers first started, I thought "cool! a grass roots movement from the right - getting lots of people involved - and there are issues the far right and the far left can agree on!" Too big to fail banks, parts of the food bill, ethanol from corn, maybe even subsidies to oil - we might not agree on all the solutions, but it seemed like we could agree on some of the problems and work together.

Alas, the TP'ers took a different turn.

It's interesting - there is a guy I know... he goes to both Dem club meetings AND TP'er meetings here in town... he says there is so much overlap in some of the things we talk about that he likes to hit both meetings. He's taken videos shown at the Dem Club and shown them at the TP'er meeting and gotten a good response (like that Nick Hanauer video Althea posted on another thread).

Sure there are things we won't agree on. But I think the Kochs, et all got the TP'er rhetoric so heated and nasty that now it's hard to for both sides to talk together. Oh, no, progressives aren't innocent here; but I think there was a moment that slipped away where we could have applied pressure from both sides to at least cut back on some of the influence of big corporations, oil companies, big banks. But of course Koch Brothers didn't want that...

 

[PostmodernProphet]

There is almost zero difference between the two parties on this. It is a cash cow for too many congressional districts ... and is most definitely is corporate welfare.

.....the farm bill has three parts that had significant changes....crop insurance, commodity support, and food distribution......both the house and the senate bills increase funding for crop insurance, both cut funding for commodity support (what most argue is corporate welfare) though the House bill cuts it by about 18bil and the Senate cuts it by about 17bil.....that part of the DoA budget that covers food stamps Senate cut by about 4bil and the House cut by about 20bil........

the rest of the bill is pretty much what it was last year.....
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43076.pdf

 

[Phantasmal]

Which (to go way off topic) is why I think it's such a shame the Tea Party movement got co-opted by Koch Brothers and their ilk.

When the TP'ers first started, I thought "cool! a grass roots movement from the right - getting lots of people involved - and there are issues the far right and the far left can agree on!" Too big to fail banks, parts of the food bill, ethanol from corn, maybe even subsidies to oil - we might not agree on all the solutions, but it seemed like we could agree on some of the problems and work together.

Alas, the TP'ers took a different turn.

It's interesting - there is a guy I know... he goes to both Dem club meetings AND TP'er meetings here in town... he says there is so much overlap in some of the things we talk about that he likes to hit both meetings. He's taken videos shown at the Dem Club and shown them at the TP'er meeting and gotten a good response (like that Nick Hanauer video Althea posted on another thread).

Sure there are things we won't agree on. But I think the Kochs, et all got the TP'er rhetoric so heated and nasty that now it's hard to for both sides to talk together. Oh, no, progressives aren't innocent here; but I think there was a moment that slipped away where we could have applied pressure from both sides to at least cut back on some of the influence of big corporations, oil companies, big banks. But of course Koch Brothers didn't want that...

The Koch brothers and the looney toons politicians.

 

[Don Quixote]

Could someone who understands the farm bill better than I please explain it to me. From my limited knowledge perspective this is up there with the worst type of corporate welfare we have and there seems to be very little distinction between the two parties on the issue as they are both for it.


(From the article)

"""Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said the bill would support 16 million American jobs, save taxpayers billions and put into place "the most significant reforms to agriculture programs in decades." But it would still generously subsidize corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, sugar and other major crops grown by U.S. farmers."""


I could obviously be wrong but this quote doesn't pass the sniff test to me. What significant reforms are there in this bill? It seems like all the other farm bills to me. And we're spending half a trillion dollars yet supposedly saving billions? Again, having a hard time buying it.


http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Senate-passes-half-trillion-dollar-farm-bill-4591407.php

it looks like a bribe to farmers and why the cuts to food stamps...unemployment may be getting better but there are still a lot of unemployed out there

also, how much is being cut from child nutrition programs while we are subsidizing farmers?

 

[PostmodernProphet]

why the cuts to food stamps...

my son works for Verizon....one of his co-workers takes food stamps.....he qualifies because his 'salary' is $3 an hour.....the fact he makes an additional $4k a month in commissions doesn't count in calculating whether he gets food stamps.......

if people can get food stamps even though they make over $50k a year there should be cuts to food stamps.......

 

[PostmodernProphet]

also, how much is being cut from child nutrition programs while we are subsidizing farmers?

so you didn't bother to read the links?.......both Senate and House bills increase spending on child nutrition programs and both cut commodity subsidies....the Senate by $17bil, the House by $18bil......