This level of crony corruption is not unusual in DC. There are huge subsidies to oil companies as well. The Republicans state the crony oil subsidies is to keep small operators in business. If that is true, then the subsidies of any kind needs a "Means Test."
There is a very real way to rein in DC spending and it starts with the best Congress to do the job and it isn't about food stamps.
By Aviva Shen
May 21, 2013 at 1:29 pm
...As the Environmental Working Group (click here) notes, crop insurance subsidies have no limits on their recipients’ income levels. Therefore, the bulk of the crop insurance is paid out in million-dollar installments to a small group of large farm businesses, while the bottom 80 percent of farmers receive roughly $5,000 a year. SNAP, on the other hand, limits aid to income below 130 percent of the federal poverty line, or $30,000 per year for a family of four....
There needs to be a "Means Test" for farm subsidies.
By Matthew Yglesias
...Here in Tennessee, (click here) Mr. Fincher embraces that view. “We have to remember there is not a big printing press in Washington that continually prints money over and over,” he said in May....
...Surrounded by corn and soybean farms—including one owned by the local Republican congressman, Representative Stephen Fincher—Dyersburg, about 75 miles north of Memphis, provides an eye-opening view into Washington’s food stamp debate. Mr. Fincher, who was elected in 2010 on a Tea Party wave and collected nearly $3.5 million in farm subsidies from the government from 1999 to 2012, recently voted for a farm bill that omitted food stamps.
“The role of citizens, of Christianity, of humanity, is to take care of each other, not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country,” Mr. Fincher, whose office did not respond to interview requests, said after his vote in May. In response to a Democrat who invoked the Bible during the food stamp debate in Congress, Mr. Fincher cited his own biblical phrase. “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,” he said....
There is a very real way to rein in DC spending and it starts with the best Congress to do the job and it isn't about food stamps. By Aviva Shen
May 21, 2013 at 1:29 pm
...As the Environmental Working Group (click here) notes, crop insurance subsidies have no limits on their recipients’ income levels. Therefore, the bulk of the crop insurance is paid out in million-dollar installments to a small group of large farm businesses, while the bottom 80 percent of farmers receive roughly $5,000 a year. SNAP, on the other hand, limits aid to income below 130 percent of the federal poverty line, or $30,000 per year for a family of four....
There needs to be a "Means Test" for farm subsidies.
By Matthew Yglesias
...Here in Tennessee, (click here) Mr. Fincher embraces that view. “We have to remember there is not a big printing press in Washington that continually prints money over and over,” he said in May....
...Surrounded by corn and soybean farms—including one owned by the local Republican congressman, Representative Stephen Fincher—Dyersburg, about 75 miles north of Memphis, provides an eye-opening view into Washington’s food stamp debate. Mr. Fincher, who was elected in 2010 on a Tea Party wave and collected nearly $3.5 million in farm subsidies from the government from 1999 to 2012, recently voted for a farm bill that omitted food stamps.
“The role of citizens, of Christianity, of humanity, is to take care of each other, not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country,” Mr. Fincher, whose office did not respond to interview requests, said after his vote in May. In response to a Democrat who invoked the Bible during the food stamp debate in Congress, Mr. Fincher cited his own biblical phrase. “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,” he said....
