12-04-2008, 01:52 PM
Dakota wrote:
How do farm subsidies work? Does the government actually give them cash or not take it from them? Gotta be careful with government accounting practices. Wouldn't make sense to cut their taxes first before giving them cash? Just don't take it from them in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy
"The subsidy programs give farmers extra money for their crops, as well as guarantee a price floor. For instance in the 2002 Farm Bill, for every bushel of wheat sold farmers were paid an extra 52 cents and guaranteed a price of 3.86 from 2002–03 and 3.92 from 2004–2007.[2] That is, if the price of wheat in 2002 was 3.80 farmers would get an extra 58 cents per bushel (52 cents plus the $0.06 price difference)."
The primary objection to giving money to the auto makers I've heard is that we should let the market decide who wins and who loses. Why shouldn't we then also just let the market decide about how much money farmers (which is increasing agricultural corporations) get for the crops. Why pay them extra money for crops they produce above what the market provides if the underlying principle is the same as the one applied to auto makers?
I'm not saying that farm subsidies are a bad thing necessarily - although I do suspect that much of the money is essentially an unjustified give-away to large agricultural corporations. What I'm saying is that fundamentally there isn't a significant difference between the federal government giving money to corporate farms and giving money to auto makers. And it's cost taxpayers over the years a tremendous amount more to give money to corporate farms than what the auto makers will likely get, so shouldn't we be giving farm subsidies a heck of lot more attention than we are to the auto bailout? Of course, but the political reality is that rural states have disproportionate representation in congress and so farm subsidies keep getting pushed with little resistance by Republican senators and congressman with large rural constituencies that are otherwise avid free-marketers. Talk about cognitive dissonance.