If you are poor and on food
stamps, you lose. If you own drought-ridden farmland and want government
subsidies in the form of really cheap crop insurance that will absolutely
guarantee you will make a nice profit at taxpayer expense, you win. The numbers
“up there” represent the Senate vote on the much-discussed farm bill. It’ll
cost about one trillion dollars over the next decade, but if you are from a
powerful rural state, your representatives have been battling for this for a
very long time… even if your land is unlikely to recover its fertility any time
soon. Rural wins. Cities lose. Again.
“The
nearly 1,000-page bill, which President Obama … signed at Michigan State
University on [January 7th], among other things expanded crop
insurance for farmers by $7 billion over a decade and created new subsidies for
rice and peanut growers that would kick in when prices drop. But anti-hunger
advocates said the bill would harm 850,000 American households, about 1.7
million people spread across 15 states, which would lose an average of $90 per
month in benefits because of the cuts in the food stamp program…
“Specifically,
[Senator Debbie Stabenow, the Michigan Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate
Agriculture Committee, who is the bill’s author] pointed out that the bill
eliminates a much-criticized $5 billion-a-year crop subsidy to farmers who
received the payments whether they grew crops or not. ‘Instead of getting a
government check even in good times, farmers will pay an insurance bill every
year and will only receive support from that insurance in years when they take
a loss,’ Ms. Stabenow said.
“In
addition, she said, the food stamp cuts affect 4 percent of recipients and do
not remove anyone from the program. It closes a loophole that states use to
increase benefits for food stamp recipients.” New York Times, February 4th.
Yeah, Mr. Farmer, you actually have to plant seeds to get the subsidy… even if
your brittle parched earth is otherwise incapable of growing anything. Even if
you know absolutely that nothing will germinate, as long as those seeds go
down, you get the money. You don’t have to do much else. You don’t have to have
anything grow. The fed’s crop insurance program didn’t lose you a dime of
benefits, unlike those food stamps folks who now have to choose between food
and rent.
The
companies that the government uses to sell that crop insurance made out like
bandits. The legislation now precludes the Department of Agriculture from
trying to renegotiate their cost basis down. “In previous years, the Agriculture Department’s
renegotiations with insurance companies have resulted in billions of dollars in
savings for the government… But the industry said it lobbied for the provision
because it was opposed to any further cuts that would affect an important
program for farmers. [Oy!]
“Critics of
the crop insurance program, like Craig Cox of the Washington-based
Environmental Working Group, said that even for a farm bill, the provision was
blatant. ‘It seems remarkable to me that Congress would pass a law that gives
private insurance companies such favorable treatment,’ Mr. Cox said… Other
winners in the farm bill included the catfish industry, which benefited from a
provision that moved catfish inspections out of the Food and Drug
Administration and into a new $20 million office at the Agriculture
Department.” NY Times.
As I delve
into what I call America’s pattern of systematically legalizing corruption,
those at the top of the food chain seem to be doing better every day, at least
when it comes to taxes, subsidies and government regulations, while those at
the bottom of the social scale make the relevant sacrifices… all in the name of
deficit reduction and the new age of austerity. Middle class. Expect less and
maybe a loss of being in that esteemed “all American” former midsection. Lower
class. Expect less and less and less and less.
I’m Peter Dekom, and it is interesting to watch a democracy
slowly (not so slowly?) morph into a full-blown plutocracy.
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