Trillion-dollar farm bill is the latest example of what’s wrong with our economy
Combine a Midwestern drought with pointless ethanol mandates, and the supplies of corn inevitably dwindle, driving prices sky high. Politicians like Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, are citing the crop crisis as an excuse to ram through a near-$1 trillion farm bill. While a bit of that cash might find its way to a small farmer, the bulk of the loot will be transferred to individuals who are anything but poor. Like the bank bailouts and TARP, the farm bill illustrates the capture of the legislative process by special interests.
The last farm bill in 2008 was the focus of $173.5 million in lobbying expenditure, according to a report released Tuesday by Food & Water Watch. This is all money spent on what the Mercatus Center’s Matthew Mitchell calls “unproductive entrepreneurship” where people are organizing and expending their talent to become rent seekers, and the end result is wealth redistribution, not wealth creation. Real entrepreneurship innovates in ways that are socially useful. Cronyism diverts resources — both money and talent — into a system that rewards privileges to favored groups. In the case of the 2008 farm bill, recipients of subsidies of $30,000 or more had an average household income of $210,000.
Mr. Mitchell argues that “government-granted privilege is an extraordinarily destructive force” because it not only results in a misallocation of resources and slower growth, it undermines civil society and the legitimacy of government by providing a rich soil for corruption.
“Mr. Mitchell argues that “government-granted privilege is an extraordinarily destructive force” because it not only results in a misallocation of resources and slower growth, it undermines civil society and the legitimacy of government by providing a rich soil for corruption.”
Well said. The problem isn’t lobbyists. It’s government wielding power. If the government restricted itself to Constitutional boundaries, the lobbyists would disappear.
Most of the money in the farm bill goes to food stamp recipients.
I think if you look closely, you will find that the food stam program is also included in the Farm Bill. Our President is working with Mexico to add even more people to the roles.
If we could only end ALL subsidies. The whole idea that folks in government are so wonderfully smarter than the marketplace allowing them to pick winners and losers at which to throw the money flies in the face of world history.
Of course ending ALL subsidies would also mean ending welfare and federal unemployement payments which subsidize sloth.
Name a government program that has been a success. Politicians throw money around like bait to catch votes using various federal programs. Look how successful SS, Medicare, the postal service, etc., etc. have been. They all cost more money than originally planned and much of the cost over runs is due to corruption.
“If the government restricted itself to Constitutional boundaries”…
I am having trouble understanding how the government is exceeding its’ constitutional boundaries while you and the Supreme court stand there and do nothing more than comment on it.
In what way is it happening?
“Of course ending ALL subsidies would also mean ending welfare and federal unemployement (sic) payments which subsidize sloth.”
Of course being a man of principle, you surely are including the G.I. Bill subsidizing education for veterans, and the mortgage tax deduction that subsidizes home ownership. In fact all tax deductions are subsidies, so out with tham all. Social security subsidizes your retirement, and Medicare subsidizes your health care.
Have you really thought this through?
I kind of think that some of these subsidies serve a useful purpose.
Not all though.
I can’t for the life of me understand why we subsidize the oil companies, or the sugar industry.
And especially the solar and wind power industries.
“I am having trouble understanding how the government is exceeding its’ constitutional boundaries while you and the Supreme court stand there and do nothing more than comment on it.
In what way is it happening?”
Here’s a good discussion:
http://www.constitution.org/lrev/bork-troy.htm
. . . if you are actually interested, which I have no doubt you are not.
Come on Harold, the enumerated powers are pretty clear, despite the pretzel twisting history of legislators and judges (including supremes) as to what is included in “interstate commerce” (see navigable waters) and general welfare (i.e. confiscation of private property for potential increase in tax revenue for local govt).
Bad decisions can at least be corrected in a representative republic.
I agree with you we should eliminate sugar and oil subsidies (though the oil subsidies are far less egregious than the sugar), but why not also corn (including ethanol), wheat, rice, dairy, etc.? None of these industries are under developed or in need of federal monopoloy protection. As Thom Jefferson said, “most problems of bad goverment, are problems of too much government.” Nuff said.
Federalist 7,11, 12, and 42 make it clear that the intent of regulating interstate commerce was to prevent interstate trade wars and states levying duties on other states’ goods. The Commerce Clause was clearly NOT to enable the Federal government to involve itself in micromanaging product content.
Indeed, Federalist 42 says that the idea of Federal regulation of state business was preposterous:
“The administration of private justice between the citizens of the same State, the supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a similar
nature, all those things, in short, which are proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction. It is therefore improbable that there should exist a disposition in the federal councils to usurp the powers with which they are connected; because the attempt to exercise those powers would be as troublesome as it would be nugatory; and the possession of them, for that reason, would contribute nothing to the dignity, to the importance, or to the splendor of the national government.”
Madison was wrong. He couldn’t see the people’s desire for fascism, a powerful, autocratic central government that would do what they wanted, regardless of the Constitution.
But by saying this, Madison makes it clear that the Commerce Clause DOES NOT ENABLE the Federal government to do whatever it damn well pleases in the name of regulating interstate commerce. To be specific, whatever light bulb you want or whatever toilet you want is none of their business. They make it their business because we, the people, do nothing about their exercising power they are not authorized to exercise. Congress has descended into debates about the affects of legislation, and never about whether they even have the authority to do what they are talking about.
Sorry, the quote above is from Hamilton in Federalist 17. Same deal, though.