Obama wants to cut Farm Subsidys

[Budmantom]

Originally posted by: Hacp
This is the wrong subsidy to cut. We all know that the biggest farm subsidy is food stamps. If we get rid of that plan, we'll save tens of billions of dollars.

I think that people on food stamps should be forced to buy generics.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: Budmantom

Originally posted by: Hacp
This is the wrong subsidy to cut. We all know that the biggest farm subsidy is food stamps. If we get rid of that plan, we'll save tens of billions of dollars.

I think that people on food stamps should be forced to buy generics.

You are why abortion is legal.

 

[BoomerD]

Farm subsidies for the big corporate farms SHOULD be stopped.

I have no problem with the subsidies that help America's "mom & pop" farms to survive, but the giants like ADM certainly don't need to be feeding at the public trough.

Big corporations don't need federal money to advertise their products in foreign countries.

Here locally, Gallo is a big participant in that program...and rakes in at least $1 million just in MAP payments.

 

[Deadtrees]

When someone hears the word 'famers,' it seems that they think about traditional farmers and that those famers will suffer from this cut.
Without understanding how majority of farms work, it is no doubt that they feel sympathy but one should know that majority of farms are owned by corporations.
The most of subsidys go to those corporations and that really is a problem.

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Ever see a "poor banker"? I never saw one and I grew up near banks. Especially now, many of the banks these days are owned by big corps, not individual people. While being an important part of the country they CAN and SHOULD stand on their own.

Fixed

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: yllus
Excellent plan, as far as I've read on the subject. There's a great Wall Street Journal article I posted a few months back on the subject that's worth repeating:

Change You Can't Believe In

Since the last farm bill in 2002, the price of cotton is up 105%, soybeans 164%, corn 169% and wheat 256%. Yet when Mr. Bush proposed the genuine change of limiting farm welfare to those earning less than $200,000 a year, he was laughed out of town. The bill purports to limit subsidies to those earning a mere $750,000, but loopholes and spousal qualifications make it closer to $2.5 million. As Barack Obama likes to say, it's time Washington worked for "the middle class," which apparently includes millionaire corn and sugar farmers.

Another purported change is the arrival of "fiscal discipline," in Nancy Pelosi's favorite phrase from the 2006 campaign. Yet it turns out this farm extravaganza may bust federal budget targets even more than we thought a week ago. That's because the new price supports ? the guaranteed floor payments farmers receive for their crops ? have been raised to match this year's record prices.

The USDA reports that if crop prices fall from these highs to their norm over the next five years, farm payments will surge. For example, if corn prices return to $3.25 a bushel from today's $6, farmers would get $10 billion a year in support payments. If bean prices fall to their norm, they'd get $4 billion. Thus, if farm prices stay high, consumers face higher grocery bills and farmers get rich. If farm prices fall, taxpayers kick in the difference and farmers still get rich.

Your article quoted is from May 2008. It's also false. Corn price has crashed along with everything else, do you people think the government is sending out checks to make up the difference? LOL, that's not the way it works.

That said I agree that the subsidies to the big farmers should be capped. They have enough loopholes to get around the existing caps so the only thing left to reign them in is lowering the cap.

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: Hacp
This is the wrong subsidy to cut. We all know that the biggest farm subsidy is food stamps. If we get rid of that plan, we'll save tens of billions of dollars.

Do you seriously support corn subsidies? Do you seriously think it's okay that a corn farmer can burn his entire crop and still make an enormous profit?

So handouts to the poor are bad but handouts to the rich are acceptable?

WTF are you talking about????

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: CPA
I can actually agree with Obama on this. Farm subsidies need to go.

One of my best friends used to teach at a school that serviced a lot of farming families. The school was flush with cash based on the tax base from the farmers. It was one of the richest schools, per student, in the state of Ohio.

Because schools are paid for from the land taxes. Land prices have crashed along with everything else, but taxes on that land have went up, not down.

 

[Lalakai]

out of curiosity....how many here are farmers or worked on farms? How many are familiar with the financial requirements that guide subsidy payments? Who can tell me what the tax laws are in relationship to foreign owned farming operations? What percentage of the US is made up of farmers? How much of our food does that percentage of the population make? Can someone tell me the average price that farmers get for a bushel of corn or 100 wgt of milk, then tell me how much it costs us on the other end, and where the highest percentage of profits end up? Who has done appraisals on agricultural land in relation to tax assessments and can you explain the tax rates applied to agricultural land? I also need a foreign policy expert that can identify countries that are supporting their agricultural bases with subsidies and can explain market mechanics on how we don't label this as "protectionism" both for our own markets, markets we ship to, and ag products we import.

I'll check back later to see who can enlighten me.

edit=spelling fix

 

[Genx87]

I think this is a good idea. Subsidies distort market realities. At some point we have to pay the piper.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Finally, something I can agree with!

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: Deadtrees
When someone hears the word 'famers,' it seems that they think about traditional farmers and that those famers will suffer from this cut.
Without understanding how majority of farms work, it is no doubt that they feel sympathy but one should know that majority of farms are owned by corporations.
The most of subsidys go to those corporations and that really is a problem.

What I've seen happen in my area is that family farms have incorporated as a mechanism to avoid hitting subsidy caps. I don't know exactly how they "work it" to avoid those caps, but it does work. I don't know of any of the really big farms that aren't getting all the subsidy possible that is allowed under the law.

 

[43st]

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

Originally posted by: Deadtrees
When someone hears the word 'famers,' it seems that they think about traditional farmers and that those famers will suffer from this cut.
Without understanding how majority of farms work, it is no doubt that they feel sympathy but one should know that majority of farms are owned by corporations.
The most of subsidys go to those corporations and that really is a problem.

What I've seen happen in my area is that family farms have incorporated as a mechanism to avoid hitting subsidy caps. I don't know exactly how they "work it" to avoid those caps, but it does work. I don't know of any of the really big farms that aren't getting all the subsidy possible that is allowed under the law.

Yeah, that method is rampant in PA. Change the farm size in the subsidy, and they just split up the acreage differently and collect the same amount or more.

I think this is a great move.. we don't need anymore f8cking corn products.

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

Originally posted by: yllus
Excellent plan, as far as I've read on the subject. There's a great Wall Street Journal article I posted a few months back on the subject that's worth repeating:

Change You Can't Believe In

Since the last farm bill in 2002, the price of cotton is up 105%, soybeans 164%, corn 169% and wheat 256%. Yet when Mr. Bush proposed the genuine change of limiting farm welfare to those earning less than $200,000 a year, he was laughed out of town. The bill purports to limit subsidies to those earning a mere $750,000, but loopholes and spousal qualifications make it closer to $2.5 million. As Barack Obama likes to say, it's time Washington worked for "the middle class," which apparently includes millionaire corn and sugar farmers.

Another purported change is the arrival of "fiscal discipline," in Nancy Pelosi's favorite phrase from the 2006 campaign. Yet it turns out this farm extravaganza may bust federal budget targets even more than we thought a week ago. That's because the new price supports ? the guaranteed floor payments farmers receive for their crops ? have been raised to match this year's record prices.

The USDA reports that if crop prices fall from these highs to their norm over the next five years, farm payments will surge. For example, if corn prices return to $3.25 a bushel from today's $6, farmers would get $10 billion a year in support payments. If bean prices fall to their norm, they'd get $4 billion. Thus, if farm prices stay high, consumers face higher grocery bills and farmers get rich. If farm prices fall, taxpayers kick in the difference and farmers still get rich.

Your article quoted is from May 2008. It's also false. Corn price has crashed along with everything else, do you people think the government is sending out checks to make up the difference? LOL, that's not the way it works.

Yes, I realize it's from May 2008 - hence the first sentence I wrote included the words "posted a few months back".

Okay, then how does it work? I thought the article was pretty clear in outlining the concept of guaranteed floor payments for crops. What happens if corn drops below $6?

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: yllus

Yes, I realize it's from May 2008 - hence the first sentence I wrote included the words "posted a few months back".

Okay, then how does it work? I thought the article was pretty clear in outlining the concept of guaranteed floor payments for crops. What happens if corn drops below $6?

Unless you had the balls to lock the price in on the futures you have to sell your corn for whatever the market price is when you decide to sell or put it under loan to the government and pay to store it.

The last I knew the loan rate was quite a bit lower then the market price so that makes no sense unless you feel like gambling this year is going to be a drought.

I just checked the local market for corn is $2.98bu. This spring before the crash for a short time you could have locked in $7.30/bu. The catch with that is you have to commit to guarantee delivering how ever many bushels you locked in. So if it would have been a drought and you locked in your average production you would have to go out on the open market and buy the bushels at whatever the price is to deliver. Had it been a major drought that could easily have been $10 or $12/bu.

Say you had 100 acres of corn planted and your average yield is 100 bu/ac. That would be 10,000 bushel you would expect to produce on a average year. Let's also assume that you were so smart that you managed to lock the price in right at the top, $7.30 (for this area). Now along comes a drought and you only produce 30 bu/ac for a total of 3000 bushel. You are commited to deliver 10,000 bushel so you have to purchase the other 7000 bushel on the open market at whatever the price is when you have to deliver. To make it easy, lets say yopu had to pay $3/bu over what you sold it for. I think that's too low, but it will serve for illustrtated this example.

So you lost $3/bu on 7000 bu, or $21,000 but you sold 3000 bu at 7.30, or about $22,000 worth. Basically you broke even except for the fact that you paid record fertilizer, fuel, and seed prices to grow that crop.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
-snip-
In my opinion, we shouldn't cut anything out of the farming part of this country. It is the backbone of the America culture and economy.

Opinions?

I'm fine with cutting subsidies to larger farmers (corporations, really). As a conservative I've always supported that.

But I support some subsidies for small, family owned farms because I think they are important to us for a number of reasons.

Fern

 

[Ozoned]

Originally posted by: Andrew1990

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
oops, sorry. I usually visit this forum in the morning and evening.

I guess I misunderstood what subsidy means.

Wait, so what did you think it meant?

I thought it meant that the government was not going to pay the farmers not to grow crops any more.

lol, I guess I totally misunderstood that term.

Don't give up so easy Andrew1990. If the USA doesn't compete with the under the table subsidies that the other Ag producing nations use, then we may be buying from them, rather than growing AND EXPORTING our own. Food stamps are a big cost of the farm bill. I would hate to see how much that cost would go up if our farmers don't have a mechanism that keeps them competitive.

I know our Farm Bill and its handouts aren't perfect, but neccassary to compete. What Obama is currently proposing is not unreasonable, but insignificant compared to the total cost of the current farm bill.

Think about what your grocery bill X 5 or 10 would look like before you decide farm subsidies are evil.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Ever see a "poor banker"? I never saw one and I grew up near banks. Especially now, many of the banks these days are owned by big corps, not individual people. While being an important part of the country they CAN and SHOULD stand on their own.

Fixed

LMFAO!

 

[Eeezee]

Maybe next we'll drop the ludicrously high sugar tariffs and start getting cheaper products that use real sugar?

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: Andrew1990

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
oops, sorry. I usually visit this forum in the morning and evening.

I guess I misunderstood what subsidy means.

Wait, so what did you think it meant?

I thought it meant that the government was not going to pay the farmers not to grow crops any more.

lol, I guess I totally misunderstood that term.

actually thats what happens in 7th grade economics classes all across the nation!
Just make sure that you don`t drop out of Jr High School!!

 

[wirelessenabled]

Originally posted by: UglyCasanova
All farm subsidies need to go.

+1

 

[Cogman]

Small time farmers just can't make it without some sort of subsidy.

btw HA HA HA to the idiot that said
"I've never seen a poor farmer, and I grew up around farms!"

Apparently he grew up in the middle of a cooperate farm because I can name a couple of cities FULL of poor farmers. Heck, my family owns a farm as a hobby and I can tell you that most years we are lucky to just break even. It isn't a huge cash cow.

Unless you have 200+ acres, it is dang hard to be a rich farmer. And you can bet competition is some of the fiercest out there.

But hey, I'm happy buying bread for over $10 if you are.