"Red State" farmers benefit most from federal disaster aid [View All]

[BJ]

Here is yet another story of the convoluted, distorted fantasy-land they call "reality" which our Repiglican friends inhabit.

I don't care to recall how many times I've heard the old bromide that farmers vote Republican because they like the party's message of independence, self-reliance and freedom from governmental interference. Well, I guess you really can't call "disaster assistance" "government interference" but taking those taxpayer funds is hardly self-reliant either.

Yet while these independent yeomen decry programs that provide a modicum of food, usually their taxpayer subsidized produce, clothing and shelter to inner city families, they have no moral compunction about lining up for the governmental dole. And it has successfully kept these stalwarts of the Plains firmly enthralled to a Republican Party that kepts them hooked on "New Deal" programs.

In some states, disaster payments have become cash crop for farmers

Great Plains states have received the most aid since 1995 for recoveries from frosts, droughts and damp weather.

By PHILIP BRASHER
REGISTER WASHINGTON BUREAU
November 14, 2004

(-snip-)
From 1995 to 2003, the government gave farmers $11.3 billion in disaster assistance, according to U.S. Agriculture Department records compiled by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based advocacy organization.

Forty percent of that money, nearly $4.5 billion, went to just five states - Texas, the Dakotas, Oklahoma and Kansas - according to the group's analysis.
(-snip-)
It's an interesting twist of political irony - the states that depend the most on disaster aid are among the most Republican states. Bush got at least 60 percent of the vote this year in every state from Texas north to North Dakota.

This year, less than a month before the election, Congress approved $3 billion in disaster assistance, but lawmakers took the money out of future spending for the Conservation Security Program, which rewards farmers for improved environmental practices.
Read the complete Sunday Des Moines Register here

The above are only four small paragraphs of a much longer front page story. I do hope you take the time to read it in its entirety.