Holy cow!
Did you see the headline on the front-page of the Sun Journal on Saturday? “Food cuts for the poor get federal support.”
The gist of the article is that some members of Congress would rather cut funding for nutrition programs – such as food stamps, subsidized school lunches and aid for low-income pregnant woman – than touch the sacred cow of farm subsidies.
Maybe we should change the expression to holy corporate welfare.
Farm subsidies are one of the biggest shams in the federal government. The vast majority of the money goes to profitable corporate farms, not to the small family farmers struggling to get by. According to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, two-thirds of all farm subsidies went to just 10 percent of recipients in 2002. Because subsidies are based on the crop, most farmers are completely shut out of the program.
From 1995 to 2002, farm subsidies cost more than $114 billion. That amount was increased by legislation in 2002 to more than $180 billion over 10 years.
President Bush, in his otherwise distressing budget, has rightly targeted agricultural subsidies for cuts. He’s a late-comer to the cause, but he’s right. The House and Senate, mostly concerned with protecting home-state recipients, are balking. Instead, they’d rather take food out of the mouths of kids, literally, and give it to some familiar names.
Heritage identified four well-known – and wealthy – men who received farm subsidies in 2002:
• David Rockefeller, the former chairman of Chase Manhattan and grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, who received 99 times more subsidies than the median farmer.
• Scottie Pippen, professional basketball star, who received 39 times more subsidies than the median farmer.
• Ted Turner, the 25th wealthiest man in America, who received 38 times more subsidies than the median farmer.
• Kenneth Lay, the ousted Enron CEO and multimillionaire, who received three times more subsidies than the median farmer.
There’s no way that the super wealthy and huge agribusiness companies deserve support from the federal government and low-income pregnant women and kids don’t.
Holy corporate welfare!
Send questions/comments to the editors.
