But they have come to be mainly a benefit to large corporate farms and also the program seems to have little to no control at the USDA. this is why Pres. Obama has said he wants to impose real limitations on who gets this aid to not include individuals above a certain income level ($1.5 million) and he wants to restrict it to those who are actually farming for a living.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/11/gao_obama_hit_farm_subsidy_abu.html"> GAO, Obama Hit Farm Subsidy Abuse
In the study cited by Obama, the GAO found that 2,702 subsidy recipients had adjusted gross income above $2.5 million and derived less than 75 percent of their income from farming - criteria that should have made them ineligible. The IRS provided the GAO with access to the tax returns of the farmers, on the condition that the names would remain private and not be shared with the USDA.
"There's a report today that, from 2003 to 2006, millionaire farmers received $49 million in crop subsidies even though they were earning more than the $2.5 million cutoff for such subsidies. Now, if this is true -- and this was just a report this morning -- but if it's true, it is a prime example of the kind of waste that I intend to end as president."
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"USDA does not have management controls, such as reviewing an appropriate sample of recipients' tax returns, to verify that payments are made only to individuals who do not exceed income eligibility caps and therefore cannot be assured that millions of dollars in farm program payments it made are proper," GAO concluded.
The recently enacted five-year farm bill sets a tighter means test. It bars farm couples making more than $1.5 million in adjusted gross income from certain farm program payments. Those with more than $1 million in non-farm income could not receive any subsidies. The new farm bill also closed a loophole that had allowed farm families to set up as many as three corporate entities to receive payments.
also see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100962.html
"Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post."
Most of the money goes to real farmers who grow crops on their land, but they are under no obligation to grow the crop being subsidized. They can switch to a different crop or raise cattle or even grow a stand of timber -- and still get the government payments. The cash comes with so few restrictions that subdivision developers who buy farmland advertise that homeowners can collect farm subsidies on their new back yards.
The payments now account for nearly half of the nation's expanding agricultural subsidy system, a complex web that has little basis in fairness or efficiency. What began in the 1930s as a limited safety net for working farmers has swollen into a far-flung infrastructure of entitlements that has cost $172 billion over the past decade.
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When the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they brought a new free-market philosophy toward farm policy. In a break with 60 years of farm protections, they promoted the idea that farmers should be allowed to grow crops without restrictions, standing or falling on their own. The result was the 1996 bill, which the Republicans called Freedom to Farm.
Instead of cutting, Congress ended up expanding the program, now known as direct and countercyclical payments. A program intended to cost $36 billion over seven years instead topped $54 billion.
now, here's a list of the top subsidy recipients from 2003 - 2005:
http://farm.ewg.org/sites/farmbill2007/top_recips1614.php?fips=00000&progcode=farmprog&yr=mtotal&enttype=indv Click on the name and at the next page click on the "EWG Farm Subsidy Database" this will take you to another page with details showing which crops reaped how much subsidy payments. This is the one for the King Ranch:
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/persondetail.php?custnumber=009316455&summlevel=summary NOw, here is a link to a file I put together summarizing the payments to the top 10 recipients of 2007:
http://www.geocities.com/jwalkerxy/Crop_subsidies_EWG.xls It shows the top ten recipients plus what crops they recieved payments for.
You'll see that one, corn comes in at fourth in payments, among the top 10 recipients. Now, for the entire program corn comes in first with $2,048,116,614 in payments. A lot of money! OH, but what was the market value of all the corn harvested in 2007? $55,211,478,663. As a percentage corn gets less than 4% of it's market value in direct payments. ONe of the lowest of the major commodities. Wheat got over 8% and cotton over 11%.
Now what is the effect of crop subsidies for us the consumers? For payments
to farmers it enables the farmer to charge less for his product than he would have otherwise. So what is paid in subsidies should result in the consumer paying LESS for those commodities for which farmers recieved subsidy payments. So this means corn is selling about 4% cheaper than it would be without the subsidies.
Now, whether we should be paying these subsidies is certainly a debatable question. I don't think people who are not farming recieving subsidy payments is debateable at all. It's pretty obvious that is ridiculous.
NOw as far as the bailout money for banks, how much have we gotten for the money provided banks in terms of more available credit? I think we all know the answer to that. Credit is still very tight. But what we did get as benefit is that the banking sector didn't totally collapse.
Now I'm not a farmer, but I do see a difference between someone producing food and a schmuck who lost Trillions of dollars of other people's money and who had to be bailed out to keep from going under. Providing financial services in terms of efficient banking transactions is worth something but I think these Wall street bankers who risked trillions on derivative instruments which they didn't even know the risks and rewards of were really not worth saving. We only bailed them out as their failure would have put the whole economy at risk.
Stiil, I wouldn't call the bankers evil. ... stupid, ...arrogant, ...reckless with other people's money, YES! But of course, the real culprits were the guys who deregulated the financial industry - the GOP.