Posted on 12/09/2001 9:07:38 AM PST by Native American Female Vet
WEEKLY FARM: Database of farm subsidies creates buzz among farmers
By Philip Brasher, Associated Press, 12/8/2001 13:08
WASHINGTON (AP) Around coffee shops, dinner tables and Internet chat rooms, the hottest topic for farmers isn't the weather or their crops. It's the cash they have been getting from the government.
A database of 2.5 million farmers and landowners who have received farm subsidies is available online for the first time through a Web site operated by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that compiled the numbers from government records. Lists of recipients also were compiled by The Associated Press and published in newspapers around the country this fall.
''The numbers are right, for crying out loud. The effect was astonishing on the farming community,'' said John Phipps, who grows corn and soybeans near Chrisman, Ill.
Phipps, who received $320,575 over the past five years, including $147,656 in 2000, says the records have forced farmers to confront how much government money they and their neighbors, relatives and landowners are getting. He thinks the subsidies are excessive and have fostered dependence on the government.
''Guys are sensitive about how big their farms are,'' he said. ''They will talk about their prostate operation, but they don't want to talk about their numbers.''
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman says she has logged onto the Environmental Working Group's Web site and looked up recipients. Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican who is critical of existing farm programs, has repeatedly promoted the site during meetings of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The numbers also have been hot topics this fall at meetings of farm organizations.
Congress is in the middle of an extensive revision of farm and conservation programs that will expire next year.
The Environmental Working Group has argued for years that farm spending is skewed to a small number of large grain and cotton farms and that more money should be put into conservation program.
The database ''opened up the farm bill debate to a lot more media attention than there would have been otherwise,'' said Ken Cook, the group's president. ''That provided us the opportunity in that debate to make our case.''
There have been 7 million searches of the Web site, initiated by 140,000 different users, since it was opened to the public Nov. 6, according to Cook's group. Some 3,600 different computers at the Agriculture Department have logged on the site.
For years, the department refused to release the names of subsidy recipients, citing privacy concerns. The Washington Post sued the department to force their disclosure and a judge decided in 1996 that the names were public records. The Clinton administration did not appeal.
Cook's group ''has angered farmers by invading their privacy in disclosing financial information,'' the American Farm Bureau Federation's Lynne Finnerty wrote in a recent organization newsletter. ''Attacking farmers, large or small, is not the answer to environmental problems.''
It remains to be seen whether the data significantly affect the congressional debate over farm policy.
An important issue is whether to raise or lower limits on subsidies that individual farmers or landowners can collect. Under a bill the Senate will vote on this week, farms still could collect crop subsidies in unlimited amounts, and could get an additional $200,000 in payments annually in two other income-support programs.
The Bush administration has been largely silent on the issue of payment limits but has argued strenuously that too much money is going to large farms that need it the least. ''It's hard to tell about the impact'' of the data, Veneman said. ''I don't see it in Congress.'' On the Net:
The Environmental Working Group's subsidy site:
http://www.ewg.org/farm
Agriculture Department: http://www.usda.gov
American Farm Bureau Federation: http://www.fb.org
Privacy? When you're taking public money, that information is not private.
Hey, I'm all for the farmers--but the public should know how public funds are dispensed. The database sounds like a reasonable idea to me.
Why do we not just allow the free market takes it course rather than paying people with tapayer funds to grow crops that can not sell (and I assume this is the case-if not someone please correct me). I daresay that removing the artificial hand of government money from things would improve economic conditions on a widescale greatly. If someone can make a case for continuing these subsidies, please do so.
Better that you pay higher grocery prices DIRECTLY than have subsidies hidden in your taxes!
If A PERSON wants to subsidize his non-profit-makibg enterprise, be it a farm or not, he should do so from his own resources, NOT with public monies.
A ending of these unfair subsidies would stop the corporate farmers who grow more income in CONGRESS THAN THE FIELDS.
I know how much some of my neighbors received and I call it a crying shame.
Farmers are going broke because they are welded to the public teat.
I have been advocating for years that all subsidies to farmers agribusiness be stop (free market). But with people like daschle and leahy and jeffords pushing for their pork it will never happen.
If the government got out of the farm subsidy business altogether, actual competition would settle in. To think that government interference is good is fantasy.
Farm subsidies are also a way that savvy politicians line their pockets with your taxpayer cash.
Lloyd Benson shuffled back and forth between Texas and DC for years collecting millions from farm subsidies from the government. It was done through a scam where his family property was broken into (if memory serves) 200 acre lots that were then leased to "friends and family". Lloyd managed the subsidies paperwork on behalf of the lessees. They leased for $1.00 and Lloyds family collected the proceeds from the government subsidies for each lot. The Bensons kept the majority of the money in the subsidies, tax free of course.
Agreed, but do you really think that welfare recipients (you know the inner city type) will ever be released? I think not.
BTW, I checked to see if my either of my brothers were included in the list for their county, and they weren't. My father would be proud.
I remember him talking about the farm programs in the 50's, when I was a kid. He really disliked the whole concept of being paid not to grow food when people were starving. A rather innnocent view in light of the fact that its the political system in starving coutries more than lack of food, but he was a man on integrity.
There is your inheritance.
Sad fact.
Follow the money!
If you will do that and analyze it completely, you might come to a different conclusion as to whom is truly being subsidized by this and all the other forms of "welfare" that have come up here.
The Environmental Working Group needs to close the circle. Take this database and compare it to campaign contributions.
Exactly how much of this subsidy money is being forwarded into campaign contributions?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.