By Kenneth J. Theisen, 7/26/07
Farming is very good business for some in George Bush’s America and it
is about to get even better for the lucky few. Congress is set to pass a new
farm bill that will continue multi-billion dollar welfare payments to the
richest farmers in the U.S. The bill was produced by the House
Agriculture Committee to fund farm programs for the next five years. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi touts
the farm bill as progressive reform because it cuts off annual payments to “farmers”
who earn $1 million a year. (In contrast, a family of four must have a net
annual income of less than $20,000 to qualify for food stamps.) With multiple
family members, partnerships, joint ventures, limited liability corporations,
cooperatives, and other business structures and other tax dodges, the one
million dollar limit can be evaded.
Two of Pelosi’s constituents in San Francisco have been the lucky recipients
of current farm subsidy programs.
Between 2003 and 2005, Constance Bowles received $1.2 million in federal
cotton subsidies through her family’s 6,000-acre farm. During the same period another family member,
George Bowles received $1.19 million in subsidies for the same family farm.
George died in 2005 or he may have received even more. Both Bowles lived in San
Francisco while the farm was in Merced. They are not exactly the family
farmer that most would imagine being helped by farm subsidies. But they are typical of the people who
receive the largest share of government subsidies for farming.
For decades, American taxpayers have provided tens of
billions of dollars in federal farm subsidies to some of the largest and
wealthiest agri-businesses in the nation.
Between 2003 and 2005, $34.75 billion in crop subsidies was provided by
American taxpayers. (Crop subsidies are just one form of agri-business
welfare.) Two-thirds of U.S.
farmers received no farm subsidy payments at all. But during this three year period the top 1%
of beneficiaries received 17 percent of the crop subsidy payments. Their
average benefit was $377,484 per person or over $125,000 a piece annually.
Contrast this to the money allocated to 26 million recipients of food stamps
who receive a meager $1 per meal or the money received by the school lunch
program. Both the Food Stamp and School Lunch Programs are funded (or
under-funded to be more accurate) by the farm bill.
Well at least family farmers receive the benefits of these
subsidies, right? Well, not quite! About
28 percent ($9.8 billion) of the $34.75 billion in crop subsidies provided by
taxpayers between 2003 and 2005 went to individuals who only received their
subsidy benefits as pass-through funds: benefits that flowed to them through
partnerships, joint ventures, corporations or other business entities. Some
“farmers” were very busy from 2003 to 2005.
These 625 busy “farmers” had five or more farm businesses each. The lucky 625 collected nearly $116 million
dollars in crop subsidy benefits from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
for an average about $185,000 a piece. Four “farmers” had 13 or more farm
businesses and averaged over $500,000 per beneficiary over this period. These
numbers expose the myth that subsidies are necessary to save family farmers. In
fact real family farmers are driven out of business by government subsidized
agri-business.
According to Chuck Hassebrook, executive director of the
Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska,
“When you say to the biggest farms in the country, ‘The bigger you get,
the more money you get from the government,’ then the farm program effectively
subsidizes the destruction of family farming. Most people in rural America think
that is bad policy.”
Daniel Sumner, director of the University of California
Agricultural Issues Center stated, “No one can think of a legitimate
reason why we have these farm programs for a handful of crops in the United States. If
the best the [House Agriculture] committee could do is say these payments are
to help people in need, and we’re going to define for farm legislation that
somebody’s in need if the family makes $2 million a year – a million for the
husband and a million for the wife – that’s a little strange. If these are
really welfare programs for the needy, we don’t normally cut those off at $1
million. It’s more like $20,000.”
But what is clear to anyone who reviews these programs, they
have nothing to do with supporting the needy. If that was the case, Congress
would be raising the limits on income so that more people could receive food
stamps in this bill. They would also be allocating tens of billions more for
school lunch and breakfast programs. Instead Congress is passing along taxpayer
dollars to people like the Bowles, media mogul Ted Turner, stockbroker Charles
Schwab, pornographer Larry Flynt, Chevron and DuPont. (These individuals and
corporations have been some of the beneficiaries of USDA subsidies.) But in Bush’s and Pelosi’s America why
shouldn’t the rich continue to benefit?
After all they are the ones that support the politicians with a
percentage of the welfare they get from the rest of us.