
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Nov. 8, 2007
/ 27 Mar-Cheshvan 5768
Beltway's Green Acres
By
Debra J. Saunders
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Watch how the new Democratic Congress packs pork into this year's federal Farm Bill. You'd think that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are trying to make George W. Bush look good. The Democrats had told America that if they won power, they would end the GOP's unconscionable spending bonanza. Now the Dems are wallowing in other people's money.
In July, the House passed a pork-laden $280 billion five-year Farm Bill. Now, the Senate is poised to pass a $288 billion Farm Bill that hands billions of taxpayer dollars your money to agribusiness.
It doesn't matter that farm incomes are at an all-time high. The Senate Farm Bill mandates $42 billion in subsidies for five crops (corn, cotton, rice, soybeans and wheat). It sets aside $26 billion in "direct payments" to farmers or people who once farmed land. As The San Francisco Chronicle's Carolyn Lochhead has so ably reported, 10 percent of beneficiaries will receive 60 percent of direct-payment funds. Dead people have received checks. According to Time magazine, Uncle Sam has given Farm Bill money to 1,324 residents of New York City.
So why would Congress pass such an outrageous bill? Because it can.
And clearly Democratic leaders, as the GOP biggies before them, have decided that they are more likely to hang onto power if they give your money to Big Ag. They fear those farm interests far more than they fear the wrath of informed voters.
You've heard this song before. In 2002, Bush made the mistake of signing a pork-fest of a farm bill put together by free-spending Republicans.
Now, however, the Bush administration has seen the light. As Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner told reporters Monday, "The fundamental flaw with the 2002 bill is it pays farmers the most when they need it the least; it doesn't pay them very much at all when they've had a crop disaster." Conner objected to the fundamental unfairness of the Senate's bid to raise taxes on other sectors of the economy, so that more tax dollars can be thrown at "millionaires living on Park Avenue."
Speaker Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, promises reform in the next Farm Bill. Ha. Methinks that if Democrats can't cut corporate welfare in the very year in which they promised to deliver big reforms, they never will. In five years, Pelosi simply will have honed the bad habits that the powerful develop to strengthen their chokehold on power inside the Beltway.
Even modest reforms are doomed. Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., have introduced the Fresh (for Farm, Ranch, Energy Stewardship and Health) Act, which would replace crop subsidies with an insurance program, directing the projected $20 billion in savings toward conservation, nutrition programs and budget deficit reduction. Supporter Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, told me, "I don't see the Fresh Act getting through the Senate. Despite the logic, there's too much pressure from the farm community to continue the subsidies."
And this bill would not slash federal farm spending. "We would certainly prefer that all savings go to reduce the deficit," Schatz noted, but moving the savings to other spending was the only way Lugar and Lautenberg could get any support.
Or put another way: In Washington, it is easier to pass a bad bill than a good bill.
It doesn't even matter that many farmers believe that subsidies hurt family farmers and encourage factory farming. A Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City study found that the rural counties that got the most subsidies suffered the worst population loss and weakest job growth. And still there is no turning off the spigot.
Bruce Babcock, director of Iowa State University's Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, told Time magazine, "It only makes sense if the mission is finding ways to shovel money to farmers."
No, it only makes sense if the mission is to buy re-election and partisan control by taking money from all taxpayers and giving it to a powerful few. It only makes sense because, beyond all reason, voters let their elected officials get away with it.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here.
Debra J. Saunders Archives
© 2007, Creators Syndicate
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|