Posted on 06/28/2013 5:15:17 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Which is why all laws should be written with a sunset date included but that is another rant.
I wish the government would just keep their fingers out.
Well, like that old saying goes: “Might as well buy the cow, if milk is going to cost $6 a gallon”.
OMG! How will the children eat all of that crappy sugar infused pulp that is called breakfast cereal? See at least two more groups will be pushing for this.
I would be willing to bet that even WITH a farm bill
we’ll see higher milk and food prices...
Farmers warn of high milk prices without farm bill
My friends sell raw milk for $5 a gallon, including all the milk fat.
Raised on a dairy farm too in my youth. At 69.5 years of age, I still drink two big glasses of milk daily.
cheaper to pay the higher price at the store than through taxation.
Buy a goat if you can’t afford factory milk. Actually, adults don’t need milk and children only need a glass a day, so at $6/gal., there could be a drastic decrease in this commodity with negligible effects.
Makes me even more glad we switched to unsweetened almond milk.
And millions of welfarestitutes warn of higher taxes with Farm bill.
8 years ago milk was about $3 and I made 50,000 this year it is about $3 and I made 170,000. Do you judge whether or not prices are based on your income?
If, say Iceland, was exporting milk you would from many on this site that we need to do something. If, OMG, China was exporting milk almost everyone here would be in support of all the government intervention they could get.
I want to know if Dairies are allowed to export milk. It is after all “our” milk produced on our land is it not? Milk should not be allowed to be exported, it should stay here and help feed our people and help create our jobs. /s
Too bad. Everyone has to ‘give’ their fair share. 0bama says so.
Milk prices are high now. So are meat, produce and lots of food items. Don’t dairy farmers ever visit the grocery store?
You have it backwards. Goliath would very quickly put all the small farmers out of business. The milk and sugar programs are probably the worst sections of the farm bill and should be radically reformed, but ....
The truth is, the big farmers and agribusinesses don't need the commodity programs. They use them, of course; if the feds have a thumb in the scale, anyone competing in an affected market has to play ball to remain competitive. But that said, the big guys could easily go full free market. The programs are there to keep the small farmers in business.
Then things get tricky. Critics who understand the above will sometimes argue that we should means test the programs. That's a plan, Sherlock: let's have a farm program that systematically discriminates against our most innovative, productive, and competitive producers. Strikes me as stupid, but others' mileage may vary.
Then the international dimension kicks in. As bad as U.S. farm policy is, the fact is, on the international scene, we are one of the good guys. Our hands are not clean, but we are a lot better than most of the furriners, and our farmers are competing in global markets. The best way to unwind the farm policy mess would be in the context of multilateral trade negotiations, but that is notoriously difficult.
So here we are. I am not a defender of the current mess, but I do think it's useful to recognize that reform is not as simple as some think. It's also useful to recognize that our farm programs have produced a U.S. food system that is remarkably cheap and wonderfully abundant. American consumers are currently spending less than 6% of disposable income on food at the grocery store, the lowest ratio in the world and the lowest in U.S. history, at least since USDA has tracked the number. Including food eaten away from home, we spend less than 10% of disposable income, again the lowest in the world. This is popularly regarded as a policy failure. Go figure.
Yet we force corn and milk into huge co-ops that “reprocess” the products. And send swat teams to stop someone from selling raw milk.
What the heck is up with that?! There has to be a real reason.
Have you driven through farm country lately?
While farmers are living much, much better than they did just 10 or 15 years ago, their income doesn’t even begin to measure up to a comparable ‘in-the-city’ businessman’s.
That can be assessed from behind the windshield. examining farm income would confirm your initial assessment.
"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)."--Mr. Justice Roberts(?), United States v. Butler, 1936.
Noting that one of the few aspects of intrastate commerce that Congress does have the constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited power to address is postal services (Clause 7 of Section 8 of Article I) the only reason that corrupt Congress is now regulating intrastate commerce, including agricultural production, is because of the Supreme Court unreasonably wide, 10th Amendment-ignoring interpretation of the Commerce Clause in Wickard v. Filburn.
In fact, contrast the Court's clarification that intrastate agricultural production is protected by 10A in Butler with how outcome-driven activist justices used terms like "some concept" and "implicit" to water down 10A in Wickard.
"In discussion and decision, the point of reference, instead of being what was "necessary and proper" to the exercise by Congress of its granted power, was often some concept of sovereignty thought to be implicit in the status of statehood (emphasis added). Certain activities such as "production," "manufacturing," and "mining" were occasionally said to be within the province of state governments and beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause."--Wickard v. Filburn, 1942.
The bottom line is that the states have never delegated to Congress via the Constitution the specific power to regulate intrastate agriculture imo, or most other aspects of intrastate commerce.
Weird. I pay $5.50 per half gallon of unpasteurized milk from a local dairy.
End all government price supports. Let’s try out a free market and see what happens.
The farm bill that affects milk prices was passed in July.
And God forbid anyone should actually pay a fair market price for their milk without government help! /s
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