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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." |
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