Posted on 09/08/2013 8:30:54 AM PDT by lowbridge
Since 1949, the government has been taking its share of their harvests under a Department of Agriculture protectionist order - Marketing Order 989 originally designed to keep prices high and growers in business.
It began as 25 percent and then it went to 35 percent and then the year in question, they told us, we're going to take 47% of your crop. I said youre not taking any of it, Horne told me as we trod softly through the avenues of sugary sweet Thompson grapes, waiting to be trimmed by seasonal Hispanic harvesters.
Reserves for agricultural products had existed before World War II. Today, apart from diamonds and oil, no other commodity is required to be placed in special stockpiles.
In a business where margins can be as thin as the vines the grapes grow on, Horne described it as highway robbery and government thievery, claiming it goes against the Fifth Amendment which says private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation.
His 11-year-long refusal to contribute became a case that reached the Supreme Court this spring. During arguments, Justice Elena Kagan said the case should be returned to Californias Ninth Circuit court which had earlier ruled against Horne to "figure out whether this marketing order is a taking or its just the worlds most outdated law.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
But when asked in an interview with Fox News why in an era of free markets such a protectionist measure like volume regulation for raisins continues to exist, the RACs president Gary Schultz said that the reserve hasnt been needed since 2009. He added that $200 million had been reimbursed to growers since 1997. The last payout was five years ago when around 3,000 growers shared $10 million.
I think its smart for the committee to have volume regulation as an option, Shultz said. After long deliberation and a lot of hearings and testimony, weve chosen not to eliminate it because weve needed to use it on many occasions since 1949 [ ] Now, fortunately, global supply and demand has taken us away from that day and were hoping that that continues for a long, long time.
It sounds to me as if the raisin growers were perfectly happy with this Federal bureaucracy when it was paying $200 million to them since 1997, but now it's an oppressive, onerous intrusion in the free market because nothing has been paid out since 2009? ROFL.
“Death to the Kulaks!”
The Department of Agriculture needs to be eliminated, along with some other federal agencies. It’s nice to dream.
The state got half my trees last harvest (for fish).
They’re are still there but I can’t have them though my dad paid for them. The action did little to prop up timber prices. Our neighbor to the north (Canada) doesn’t have the regulatory issues...
Companion story to the armed and armored bureaucrats who descended upon Alaska and choked Chicken under the guise of inspecting violations of The Clean Water Act.
And now, Supreme Court Justice Kagan wants the lower court to decide if it's a law or a taking.
In short, it's apparent that no such law was passed by Congress and signed into law by a President; so ... Ms Kagan ... In my humble opinion ... it's not a law, it's an unconstitutional taking.
To her credit, she did say the world’s most outdated law.
These seizures are still done because it protects the foreign raisins dumped on the US market and international markets
Free Traders are inheriently anti-American, and keep a lot of the laws on the books from the FDR days to protect foreign goods and investments...and limiting the production and harvest of American ag products are their major tool
The prices of US raisins, and other agri goods, are kept artificially high so that the Communist Chinese and other countries can sell their products at a discount.
Although Free Traders whine that Americanists are “protectionist”....it is actually Free Traders who are the protectionists
How did they get past respecting your preexisting NTMP?
$200 million went to 3000 growers over 22 years. That works out to $3030 per year. I bet he would rather have the other 47% of his crop to sell instead of that lush payout every year.
ESA trumps EVERYTHING.
Wait, WHAT...? The fifth...?????
Doesn't he mean the FOURTH...? Wow, I must be an idiot.
I guess he should have thought about that before he accepted his first $3,030 payment, eh?
Baloney. Government subsidies like these are the exact opposite of what a “free-trader” would be calling for. U.S. subsidies and price supports let U.S. producers sell their commodities much cheaper than our foreign competitors. This is why U.S. agricultural subsidies are a stumbling block in ever round of trade agreement talks these days.
I guess it took him a while to get the balls to refuse to pay in.
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