Big Farm Subsidies vs Food Stamps...Whose Plate Will Congress Fill?

[MissMarple]

This might warrant a call to one's congressperson. That this even a possibility is an embarrassment to our country. How low will these Republican shills go? Perhaps we should send them all a copy of Swift's "A Modest Proposal".

http://csmonitor.com/2005/1006/p09s02-coop.html

"Very soon, the Senate is scheduled to make some difficult choices about how the nation spends its agriculture dollars - a mandate to cut $3 billion in the agriculture budget over the next five years will force reductions in some programs.In my state, that decision boils down to whether four big farmers will have to suffer with a $250,000 cap on their government subsidy or half a million people will have to quit eating. The real problem is that we are actually considering the latter.

The food stamp program gives 544,744 Kentuckians access to enough money to adhere to a "thrifty food plan." For a family of four, that equals $471 a month - about $1.31 per meal per person. I wish whoever developed the plan did the grocery shopping at my house. Most of the recipients are from working families, and food stamps subsidize their grocery budget and allow them to balance precariously housing, healthcare, child care, transportation, and other minor life crises that come their way.

Conversely, the farm subsidy program, which was created during the depression to help small family farms, has morphed into $11 billion a year in government payments to large-scale commercial farms nationwide. Only about $4 billion actually makes it to those small family farmers today. My guess would be that capping those subsidy payments at a mere quarter million would hardly put any of those huge commercial farms out of business.

Hunger and poor nutrition have real consequences for everyone, not just those who don't get to eat well. Related health issues have a more far reaching impact on our national budget than agriculture. But for every $5 of food stamps spent at a local grocery, we generate almost $10 in total economic activity - not a bad return."

[fed-up]

1. Farm Subsidy Database-see what your local farmers get

http://www.ewg.org/farm/

[400Years]

2. thanks for that link, looks very useful

[MissMarple]

3. Interesting. A lot of them have "family" names.

But I'm guessing those aren't the family farms as we used to think of them.

[sandnsea]

4. $471 with ZERO income

As your income goes up, that amount goes down. A working family doesn't get that much, probably more like a 1/3. In case you weren't aware. And food stamps are a farm subsidy too, that's why they're in the ag budget, and somebody ought to remind farmers of that fact.