19. December 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

Two pieces on the WTO ruling against US subsidies for cotton & other crops follow.

Couple of thoughts :
1) As you know I think subsidies harm agriculture & the quicker we can move to a more free market system the better it will be.
2) The ruling against cotton will be particularly harmful — short term — to Mississippi agriculture and rural communities that depend upon cotton/ gins for a big portion of their economic activity. But, again, eliminating subsidies should have a long term posititve impact on rural Mississippi.
3) WTO is bogus. Globalist bodies have no right to be dictating our trade policies and the politicans that enacted this should be tried for treason. ( Their oath is still to the Constitution).

WTO releases official ruling against US cotton subsidies

Turkish Press : World Trade Organisation to rule on US farm subsidies: sources

Posted in Cotton, Mississippi Agricultural News, Difficult Issues in Agriculture & Rural Life, Farm Subsidies, Smaller Government, Freedom in Agriculture | Print | No Comments »

18. December 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

I have spoken out strongly against the USDA & for the elemination of subsidies.
It is no secret that I believe federal subsidies paid to farmers are a bad idea. There is a two fold reason for this.

1) They violate nearly every principle I believe about limited government — I think subsidies not only violate the Constitution, but also God’s Law and the lessons of history & economics. Beyond that they are Marxist to their core and represent an intrusion and an affront to liberty.

 2) I am convinced that subsidies are immeasurably harmful to the very farmers & rural communites they profess to want to help on more fronts than I care to list here ( a different post maybe ?)

That being said, while I have some ideas, I cannot completely explain the level of opposition they get from much of the mainstream press, liberals, neo-conservatives & city folks in general.

It is certainly not that the folks at the New York Times, the Enviormental Working Group, and other liberal media. non profit “think tanks” , and Democratic politicians have suddenly become doctrinare libertarian advocates of smaller government.

For Big government, balanced budget neo-cons who are likewise not concerned about too much government controll of our lives or aren’t hindered by questions about whether or not something is a legitimate function of government, but just seek for government micromanagement to be more efficient & business like are really confusing because of the following :

The TOTAL “Farm Bill” is less than 1% of the Federal Budget. ( not much fat would be cut out if it were eleminated entirely).
Of this 1% — roughly $88.8 Billion USDA Budget in 2007 the following closer breakdown shows that most of this does not go to farmers in the form of subsidies but rather to things like food stamps,  foriegn aid, even “rural development” includes things like grants to buy police cars & remodel government buildings in small towns.

Here are some particulars :
“Farm Programs” : $12.4 Billion or 13.9% of the total
* That means that 86% of the “Farm Program” is not subsidies paid to “rich farmers” at the expense of “poor farmers in developing nations”. Or, put another way, the farm subsidies represent slightly over 1/100th of 1% of the Federal Budget or .00139 %. I am fairly certain that even someone as dumb as me could find a whole list of other boondoggles that are much more costly.
Domestic Food Programs ( i.e. welfare, food stamps, etc): $51.4 Billion or 57.8%
That’s right, government welfare makes up almost 60% of the “Agriculture” budget
Other areas that fall under the “Farm Bill” heading include $2.4 Billion in “Foriegn Ag Service”, $3.0 Billion for “Rural Development”, $2.5 Billion for “Food Safety Inspection” and $ 5.1 Billion for “Conservation Programs”.
I wonder how many of the neocons would be in favor of cutting out the Foreign Aid or liberals at the Enviormental Working Group would want to drop off the 5 billion of Conservation Programs ? ( I think we all know the answer).

So again, I am not defending farm subsidies — FAR from it –, I just wonder why they are so derided by people who otherwise never met an increase in government spending or power that they didn’t like.

I have some ideas, but I’ll save them for later . Any of you have any thoughts that you’d like to share, please feel free to.

LR

Posted in Difficult Issues in Agriculture & Rural Life, Cotton, Farm Subsidies, Smaller Government, Freedom in Agriculture, Rural Development | Print | No Comments »