Posted on 02/05/2014 7:05:09 PM PST by gooblah
Coming in at almost $1 trillion, and after three years of legislative delays, Congress has passed a farm bill. President Obama is expected to sign the farm bill into law at Michigan State University Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
They threw PILT, Payment in Lieu of Taxes, into the farm bill where it DOES NOT belong in order to force Republican legislators in the West to vote for the monster. It is disgusting.
If anyone wants to know what that means, let me know.
MSU is traditionally an AG and Forestry school.
We all know how this will play out. Republicans will get the blame for the food stamp cuts and the farm subsidies and the democrats will reap the rewards.
There is no cut. It’s a meaningless cut in the rate of increase. Only the Potomacized consider this a cut.
Bingo. Why on Earth couldn’t the Republicans just split the damn bill up. there were good things in that bill. It’s mind boggling.
Bingo. Why on Earth couldn’t the Republicans just split the damn bill up. there were good things in that bill. It’s mind boggling.
I appreciate the article because it had bits and pieces as to why it is called a farm bill, not that Congress would deceptively name any bill. /sarc
One reason that it is called a farm bill is because of farm subsidies for crops. But there is a major constitutional problem with subsidies imo. More specifically, what Congress doesn't want low-information citizens to know about vote-winning farm subsidies is the following. As mentioned in related threads, the Supreme Court has historically officially clarified, in terms of the 10th Amendment nonetheless, that the states have never delegated to Congress, via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate agriculture.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited. None to regulate agricultural production is given, and therefore legislation by Congress for that purpose is forbidden (emphasis added).” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
But I know that many farmers might be thinking that they'd lose revenue if Congress didn't make such laws, but that's wrong.
More specifically, the Supreme Court has also historically clarified that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, intrastate agriculture one such example.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Based on Justice Marshall's official words, farmers evidently don't understand that Congress is actually buying the loyalty of farmers with the farmers' own money which corrupt Congress wrongly stole from farmers in the form of constitutionally indefensible federal taxes.
On the other hand, I suppose that farmers could always argue that by accepting federal subsidies for their crops that they are simply recovering stolen revenue.
So if farmers want farm subsidies it is best to work with state lawmakers who have the 10th Amendment-protected power to tax and spend for such things.
Finally, if farmers should ultimately decide that federal crop subsidies are the best way to combat lost crop revenues as a consequence of nature, then farmers have the following constitutional remedy. Farmers can work with their state and federal elected representatives to comply with the Constitution's Article V and propose an appropriate amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification. Such an amendment would grant Congress the specific power that it needs to regulate, tax and spend for agreed upon intrastate agricultural purposes. And if the states chose to ratify such an amendment, then farmers would have their desired federal safety net.
A good part of that Farm Bill is to subsidize American Ag for losses due to Free Trade
“Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism.
Now, since under this definition socialism is a body of doctrine, what attack can be made against it other than a war of doctrine? If you find this socialistic doctrine to be false, absurd, and evil, then refute it. And the more false, the more absurd, and the more evil it is, the easier it will be to refute. Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.”
— Frederic Bastiat, the Law, 1850
I read that subsidies to farmers were eliminated. Then I read that they aren’t eliminated. I guess it needs to be read to see what’s in it.
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