tommyknocker wrote in message
On top of that, most farm "subsidies" go to big corporations and rich
absentee "farmers". America's generous farm subsidies mean that Third
World farmers can't compete in their own countries against imported
American grain. In fact, two trade talk meetings have ended
unsucessfully because the poor countries are demanding that we end our
farm subsidies. So what do we do? INCREASE them!



Very true tommyknocker. See the below story by ABC's John Stossel
which validates what you say.

Today’s biggest welfare queens are probably farmers -- once, in
their glory days, the most self-sufficient of Americans.

When I make speeches about free markets at Farm Bureau conferences,
farmers applaud enthusiastically. But despite their surface support
for free markets, most of them operate in a market that’s very
expensive for all of us, receiving $200 billion in direct handouts
this decade, plus another $200 billion in artificial price supports
(which force us all to pay more for food).

Farm supports are as destructive as the old welfare payments to poor
people were. Just as addictive, too. Subsidies are supposed to help
farmers recover from low prices caused by overproduction, but the
subsidies lead farmers to plant more crops, creating more
overproduction, which lowers prices, making farmers even more
dependent on handouts.

The programs wreck the lives of farmers in poor countries because they
can’t compete with subsidized American farmers (or with even
more-subsidized European farmers). Hypocritical politicians blather
constantly about helping the poor and demand more of your tax money
for foreign aid. But they simultaneously give out farm subsidies,
which rig the system so that all over the world poor farmers stay
poor.

Why shovel all this money to American farmers?

Because we like farms. Farms are romantic. No one wants to lose the
family farm. Of course, most handouts don’t go to family farms.
They end up going to big farm corporations, because the big,
established companies are most skilled at using the system. Fortune
500 firms like Westvaco, Chevron, John Hancock Life Insurance, Du
Pont, and Caterpillar each get hundreds of thousands of dollars in
subsidies.

Another reason farmers get these ridiculous handouts is that
they’ve become remarkably proficient at panhandling. Every state
has a politically aggressive farm lobby, and every politician wants to
stay on its good side. Watching the 2000 election’s Iowa
caucuses was nauseating. At Vice President Al Gore’s rallies,
they played country music while Gore regaled crowds with farm stories.
"Every summer," said Gore, who grew up in a fancy Washington hotel,
"we went back down to the farm. I was in the 4-H club."

Even so-called shrink-the-government Republicans will make government
bigger for farmers. The candidate the press called the most
"conservative," Alan Keyes, said farm supports are absolutely
necessary: "It’s a question of America’s moral decency."

Oh, please. Most American farmers do just fine -- better than most
other Americans. Subsidies go to corn growers who earn more than
$200,000 a year, even to "farmers" like my ABC colleague Sam
Donaldson, who got thousands of dollars in wool and mohair payments
because he and his wife raised sheep and goats on their New Mexico
ranch. Donaldson calls the payments "a horrible mess" (he’s sold
the livestock and no longer collects subsidies), but he compares them
to the home mortgage deduction, saying, "As long as the law is on the
books, it’s appropriate to take advantage of it." Rich people
take extra advantage: From 1996 to 2000, David Rockefeller got
$352,187; Ted Turner, $176,077; basketball star Scottie Pippen,
$131,575.

Farmers argue, "We need subsidies -- because the food supply is too
important to be left to the uncertainties of free market competition."
But farmers who grow beans, pears, and apples receive no government
subsidies, and they thrive. Free markets are best at producing ample
supplies of everything. Notice any shortages of unsubsidized green
beans, pears, and apples? Me neither.

Yes, some farmers have a tough time. Some will go broke and lose their
farms. That’s sad. But it’s also sad when people at
Woolworth’s or TWA lose their jobs. Letting businesses fail is
vital for the creative destruction that allows the market to work.
Those who fail move on to jobs where their skills are put to better
use. In the long run, it makes life better for the majority.

The Biggest Piggie?

When public interest groups compile lists of corporate welfare
recipients, a company called Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is usually
at the top of the list. You may never have heard of ADM, because its
name rarely appears on consumer products, but it’s huge. Its
products are in most processed foods.

ADM collects welfare because of two cleverly designed special deals.
The first is the government’s mandated minimum price for sugar.
Because of the price supports, if a soft drink maker wants to buy
sugar for its soda, it has to pay 22 cents a pound -- more than twice
the world price. So Coca-Cola (and almost everyone else) buys corn
sweetener instead. Guess who makes corn sweetener? ADM, of course. Now
guess who finances the groups that lobby to keep sugar prices high?

ADM’s second federal feeding trough is the tax break on ethanol.
Ethanol is a fuel additive made from corn, kind of like Hamburger
Helper for gasoline, except that it’s more expensive, so no one
would buy it if government didn’t give companies that use
ethanol a special 52-cent-a-gallon tax break. That costs the treasury
half a billion dollars a year. ADM produces half the ethanol made in
America.

Why does ADM get these special deals? Bribery. OK, it’s not
technically bribery -- that would be illegal. ADM just makes
"contributions." Through his business and his family, former ADM
Chairman Dwayne Andreas gave millions in campaign funds to both
Mondale and Reagan, Dukakis and Bush, Dole and Clinton. President
Nixon’s secretary, Rosemary Woods, says Andreas himself brought
$100,000 in cash to the White House. He even paid tuition for Vice
President Hubert Humphrey’s son. Republicans, Democrats -- it
doesn’t matter. ADM just gives.

It also flies people around on its corporate jets. When we contacted
Andreas to ask for an interview, he arranged to fly us to ADM’s
Decatur, Illinois, headquarters in one of ADM’s jets. I’ve
seen private jets before, but ADM’s was a step above. A flight
attendant served us excellent food on gold-plated china. The camera
crew and I loved it. Bet the politicians like it too.

A limo took us to Dwayne Andreas’ office. Once the cameras were
rolling, I brought out the questions about "corporate welfare." I
foolishly thought I could get him to admit he was a rich guy milking
the system. I thought he’d at least act embarrassed about it.
Fuggeddaboutit. He was unfazed.

Stossel: Mother Jones [magazine] pictured you as a pig. You’re a
pig feeding at the welfare trough.

Andreas: Why should I care?

Stossel: It doesn’t bother you?

Andreas: Not a bit.

I still wonder why he granted the interview. I asked him about his
bribes -- I mean, contributions. For example, Andreas gave the
Democrats a check for $100,000. A few days later, President Clinton
ordered 10 percent of the country to use ethanol.

Stossel: And the purpose of this money wasn’t to influence the
president?

Andreas: Certainly not.

Stossel: So why give him the money?

Andreas: Because somebody asked for it.

Because they asked for it? Give me a break.

In an ABC special I made called Freeloaders, economist Walter Williams
aptly noted: "A panhandler is far more moral than corporate welfare
queens....The panhandler doesn’t enlist anyone to force you to
give him money. He’s coming up to you and saying, ‘Will
you help me out?’ The farmers, when they want subsidies,
they’re not asking for a voluntary transaction. They go to a
congressman and say, ‘Could you take his money and give it to
us?’ That’s immoral."

Andreas’ attitude is rampant in many different areas of
corporate America, and it’s an ugly one. But there’s
always some legitimate-sounding justification. The politicians need
your money for national security, research, job protection, or to
"protect the food supply." After spending time on the golf course with
lobbyists, politicians will find a way to justify almost anything.
They justify giving subsidies to prosperous companies that sell goods
overseas by saying that the resulting exports will be "good for
America." They will be. But does Sunkist need taxpayer help to sell
oranges? McDonald’s to sell McNuggets to the Third World? Let
them do their own marketing. My employer -- Disney, which owns ABC --
got tax money to create better fireworks at Disney World. Really.

Politicians will hand over millions of dollars to sports teams under
the pretense that it will help create jobs and economic activity --
ignoring the jobs and economic activity that would have resulted had
the taxpayers been able to keep their millions to spend on what they
chose. (See "If You Build It, They Will Leave," January.)

Some handouts allegedly keep certain industries alive in America --
even though we’d all be better off just buying their products
from overseas if foreign producers can make them cheaper. The shipping
industry, for example, gets billions in handouts. Without them,
American shipbuilders say, they can’t compete with low-cost
shipbuilders overseas. American politicians should say: "They’re
more efficient overseas? Fine! We’ll buy their cheaper ships."
And American taxpayers would be richer. But we don’t do that --
because the shipping industry has friends like former Senate Majority
Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.). He makes sure Congress keeps your money
close to home -- his home.

I interviewed Lott. Without moving the tripod, our camera could pan
from his Mississippi home to the shipyard that got half a billion
dollars of your money to build a ship the Defense Department never
even requested. Lott didn’t even seem ashamed of that. "Pork is
in the eye of the beholder," he joked. "Where I’m from...[pork]
is federal programs that go north of Memphis."