Lean budget +farmers = told ya, suckaaaazz

[eek]

Right after the election someone in here posted about the farmers (who voted for the axis of evil ticket) who were going to lose their beloved subsidies even though they'd been told otherwise during campaign stumps.

I loved that person's postt: something like "Hope those dumbass farmers are happy about keeping abortions and queers outta Wiconsin"

(it was much funnier than that)

I doubt I'm alone in being perversely glad about "red voters" gettin' it in the shorts.



Hey - can we get an emoticon of , like, a Bronx cheer?

[xchrom]

1. doesn't make me feel bad.

social conservatives should be willing to pay for what they buy.
no sympathy. and i wish them no peace.

[jrthin]

2. They voted for

this dumb-a$$. They should get EVERTHING he promised.

[CTyankee]

3. Looks like just about everybody

is "gettin it in the shorts" with *'s budget. Especially veterans, old poor people and kids. The farmers are just one on the list.

I just hope I live long enough to see a massive payback to this Republican party.

[vpigrad]

4. Wow, now they have to work for a living like the rest of us.

What's the problem?

[sybylla]

13. Don't know any farmers, do you?

I have yet to meet one in my state who has been kicking it back living on the dole. I can't begin to tell you how stupid your comments sound. In fact, I'm shocked to hear it knowing this supposed to be the Democratic Underground.

Perhaps you'd like to expand on your comments and explain in greater detail exactly what you meant. I'm sure I must have misunderstood if only you'd point it out to me.

[vpigrad]

15. Huh?

I know plenty of farmers. Why would you lie and say I don't. I don't get it.

[sybylla]

16. yeah...

right. :wow:

[vpigrad]

18. I don't get it....

wouldn't the government money be better spent by giving more people less than they're giving to the farmers? The farmers get a lot. More should get the money.

And, I know a lot of farmers. I live in the middle of nowhere Georgia and lived for years in central Wisconsin, so more of the people I know are farmers.

[sybylla]

19. Yeah, living lives of luxury, no doubt.

being on the government dole and all. Got a source or an explanation for "farmers get a lot?" I'm just curious what your definition of a lot is.

I'm a little slow and could use a few examples of how working 100+ hour work weeks and getting paid less for your product than it cost to make it is living high on the hog.

[MessiahRp]

27. I agree with Sybylla

Farmers who get Government help are not exactly living it up. I used to live on a farm and work on it and trust me it's the hardest work there is (which is why it's becoming so damn hard to get people to go into this field straight out of school).

The farmers who could use a reduction in Government help are the corporate farmers who put together poorly kept mass farms. They end up being the ones that reap the rewards of their political contributions while the hard working average family farmer suffers from price gouging that comes from those same corporate farms.

Look they might vote in a misguided way but I think we need to all remember exactly who speaks to them. Think there's any liberal radio DJs down there when they are listening to Country music and working all day long? Hard to believe that the left will do them any good when the right are the only people they hear.

Farmers might vote the wrong way but they are the hardest working people out there and need and deserve the Government help they receive so that in future generations we have some farmers left because the job lacks profit to the degree that for many the massive workload isn't worth the losing of money. Take that into account before belittling the farmers because they vote opposite of you.

Rp

[MuseRider]

5. I'm a farmer in a Red state

thanks, I really appreciate the compassion of my party. I am headed out to spend the day working outside in the ice storm. Yes, I will earn my own keep.

[acmavm]

7. Relax, we understand that not every single farmer in the US voted for

the Unelected Fraud. But at the same time I must say that living here in Nebraska with all these mysoginistic and racist assholes who think that helping out minorities and the poor is wrong while they had no problems taking farms subsidies for years, well this just makes me laugh. Sort of like the big Cosmic payback.

But somehow I think that corporate farms, the really big ones that have screwed up the air quality (even more than it is with the pig lots) and the water table (with their massive use of chemicals) etc., will find a way to get theirs.

[MuseRider]

8. Relax?

It is really difficult to. I know of no one out here who has taken a subsidy. They work at least 14 hours a day. They are good and kind people and if their tractor or other piece of equipmment breaks down and they can't fix it themselves their life doing what they have always done is over. None of the farmers I know are racist, they may have given me a hard time when I started since I was a woman doing it alone with no clue how to do it but it was teasing, not mysongyny and they were always there if I needed help. Many people here on DU have a knee jerk reaction of some kind, this is mine. I hate to see these good people lumped in with all the others. Go ahead and laugh, it won't win you any votes but it may make you feel better. Now, I have to go. I didn't mean to unload like this but I am facing a hard, nasty day outside then I come here and read this and it pissed me off.

[DrGonzoLives]

28. Yet the same people

wonder why we keep losing Presidential elections.

[sybylla]

6. Unfortunately, as with every demographic

there are Democratic farmers who didn't vote for the chimp who will get hurt by this and don't deserve it.

I know a few personally who campaigned hard for Kerry when they had the time. I haven't heard the specifics of the proposals, but I fear that this will speed the end of dairy farming in Wisconsin - which California and New England have been planning all along so don't expect too many sad faces over it.

As for the family values farmer, I'd love to see a Bronx cheer emoticon created in their honor.

[ewagner]

12. Actually a pretty mixed group

I worked with farmers for over ten years all over the state and found them to be a pretty mixed group. There were some Dems but the vast majority I worked with in the Eastern and Northeastern part of the State, were hard-core conservatives....Limbaugh blasting from the radio in the barn, expressing strong conservative values (independence, self-reliance, homophobic, racist) while bitching that the government isn't providing enough subsidy to their milk prices....

Corporate farms are another matter....most of the "corporate farms" that I worked with were family owned corporations....there were one or two "investor-owned" farms but the majority were owned by families....brothers/father-son/operations mostly.

I'll never argue that Wisconsin's dairy farmers don't work hard...they do....but they have yet to think out which party best suit their interests....

[sybylla]

14. As a group, I totally agree with your assessment

But specifically, I know several farmers in the area who don't fit the stereotype, one from a long line of Democrats. His grandfather led milk strikes in the early part of this century in New York State and spent several days in jail for knocking the bung off a milk truck with a sledge hammer. There are good, thinking Democrats who farm, too.

Yeah, I'm surrounded by idiot puke farmers who voted against their own interests. But as a bleeding-heart Dem, I still feel for those who supported Kerry and who know what this means for their future.

[ewagner]

17. In another post

I suggested that we need to exercise just the right combination of disdain and pity....We need to chide them for voting for Dubya but also have to welcome them "Home" to the party they really belong to....

Maybe time for a LTTE HUH?

[sybylla]

20. LTTE? Great idea ewag

And you sound like just the guy to do it.

Do you know if these are the same cuts that Dave Obey warned about before the election? I have his press release if you would like something to reference in your letter. I'll send it to you if you're interested.

on edit: no this is not the cuts Dave Obey warned about. Never mind.

[ewagner]

21. I'd like to see

Dave's Press Release.........If you want to fax it, I'll PM my FAX number.....

still working on the LTTE........

[sybylla]

23. It was about the MILC's

The article I posted in #22 says that this doesn't touch the MILC's. I'll still send it if you're interested, though.

edited because I didn't read my own post - it's been a long day already.

[ewagner]

24. Got it.....

I'll write without it........

[madrchsod]

9. wait till the price of food goes thru

the roof..milk over 5 a gallon and other products increasing dramatically. civilizations rise and fall on there ability to feed it`s people...

[Ian David]

11. Maybe we should re-frame things like welfare as "subsidies"

By paying people welfare, we are subsidizing higher-paying jobs. If someone can make $12,000 a year doing nothing, they won't accept a JOB making $12,000 a year which would otherwise have lowered wages across the job market.

Welfare is a working-wage subsidy.

And it's also an anti-crime subsidy. It's paying people not to steal money for food.

[gumby]

10. The Neocons destroyed the language first.

"Farmer" now means corporation.

Family farms are now simply "rugged individuals" who should sit down and shut up like everyone else in this country who isn't mega-wealthy.

IIRC, the Torture Party restored the farm subsidies last time around.

[sybylla]

22. Don't celebrate too quickly

http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_19745095.shtml
Budget proposal would benefit state farmers
By Brian Tumulty
Post-Crescent Washington bureau

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin dairy farmers would benefit while local manufacturers seeking federal assistance with advanced technology would be hurt under the 2006 proposed fiscal budget released Monday by the White House.

Keeping his campaign pledge of last year, President Bush included in his proposed budget a two-year extension of the Milk Income Loss Contract program that provides federal aid to dairy farmers when milk prices drop.

Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., estimates the program provided $414 million to Wisconsin dairy farmers over the past three years.Kohl last week joined a group of senators in sponsoring legislation that would renew the program.

However, Bush also proposed a 5 percent across-the-board cut in commodity subsidies for farmers — including dairy — and capping federal payments to individual farmers at $250,000 annually.
<snip>

Apparently the whore press thinks it's not as painful as you all might wish. :shrug:

[gizmo1979]

25. Those subsidies are sacred.

There is no way those will go away.There are senators and congressmen,whom their only purpose in life are those subsidies.They will die first!Iam not for these subsidies I'am just stating fact.They will still be there 100 years from now.

[TheMightyFavog]

26. This is what happens when people vote with their Bibles...

instead of their brains. From my experience back home in Rural marinette County, most of the farmers in that area voted rethug either because they were fundies or because they had swallowed the NRA's meme that the Dems were out to take away their guns hook, line and sinker.

Just another reason why Dems need to drop gun control, we'd pick up rural voters in droves.