Farm Policy Foolishness

Member Group : Jerry Shenk

Redistricting and retirement have introduced most Central Pennsylvanians to less-familiar representatives in Congress. Todd Platts retired and, in 2013, was replaced by Scott Perry. After Tim Holden was redistricted north and east, his former area constituents met Lou Barletta, Charlie Dent or Jim Gerlach.

Former Hazleton mayor Barletta is in his second term, Dent his fifth, and Gerlach his sixth. Perry, Barletta, Dent and Gerlach are all Republicans.

"Republican" doesn’t always have the same meaning. As we know from GOP majorities in the state legislature, often, it doesn’t mean anything. Since Perry, Gerlach and Dent formerly served there (6, 12 and 14 years, respectively), voters may notice differences among them in Washington as well.
For example, watch how each of our Republican congressmen votes on an upcoming farm bill and its amendments.

The latest farm bill expired in 2012, but renewal was delayed allowing farm-state legislators in both parties to avoid public election-year debates on farm subsidies, one of America’s most senseless, profligate relics of FDR’s New Deal.

Corn prices have soared more than 70 percent in three years. High world wheat prices have contributed to hunger and unrest in third-world countries. Prices for other farm commodities have reached record levels. Increased demands from a growing world population have made raising row crops extremely profitable.

America’s broke. Taxpayers are tapped out. Millions are jobless or underemployed. Nonetheless, the federal government subsidizes highly profitable agricultural commodities.

To preserve subsidies, congressional farm-state legislators, whose agribusiness and bio-fuel special interests fund campaigns, added food-stamp funding to farm legislation, creating an overwhelming congressional voting bloc combining rural entitlements with the entitlement interests of urban legislators.

A 2007 Heritage Foundation study estimated that, on average, farm subsidies cost American families $320 a year in higher taxes and food prices. The number has grown since, however the data is useful for demonstrating how subsidies affect local taxpayers/consumers and farmers.

Most agricultural products reach markets without subsidies. Three of the five top-subsidized crops (wheat, cotton, corn, soybeans, and rice) are grown locally, however — although generous subsidies have encouraged some local farmers to farm marginal land or acquire often non-contiguous farmland to boost their payments — few Pennsylvania farms number among the top 10 percent of huge farms and agribusinesses that receive about 75 percent of farm subsidies.
Area subsidy-recipients are far more likely to rank among the 80 percent of farms nationwide that divide only about one-tenth of agricultural subsidies.
Applying Heritage’s now-understated 2007 estimate, 256,000 households and local economies in a typical Pennsylvania congressional district lose $81.9 million per year to the taxes and higher prices for food caused by crop subsidies.

According to the Environmental Working Group’s 2011 crop-subsidy database, a relative handful of farmers in ex-Congressman Tim Holden’s former district received total subsidies of $99.4 million over eleven years. Nearly all local farmers receive either very modest or no subsidies, yet families in Holden’s old district, cumulatively, paid out more every fifteen months than the total subsidies a few district farmers received in more than a decade.

Never mind that they strip household budgets and local economies, subsidies are winners for members of Congress who receive millions each election cycle from large food, farm, and forest interests and agri-business lobbyists.

There’s a logical disconnect in combining food-stamp and crop subsidies in farm bills. Farm subsidies force all consumers, including food-stamp recipients, to pay more for groceries. Yet a majority in Congress fails to see the irony in paying row-crop subsidies that reduce the purchasing power of food stamps.

CBS reports that, in anticipation of an improved economy, House and Senate farm bill versions will approve modest cuts in food stamp funding. Direct-payment farm subsidies not tied to production or commodity prices will be cut, too, but new farm programs are planned, as are increases in other farm subsidies.

Members of Congress from both parties must stand up to generous agricultural special interests and eliminate subsidies. There are better, less expensive, more effective and equitable ways to ensure food safety and supply. The Environmental Working Group lists a number of them at their website.

If America is to disrupt the nexus of campaign contributions and taxpayer handouts to special interests, eliminating farm subsidies is an imperative.
What will Messrs. Perry, Barletta, Dent and Gerlach do? Stay tuned…

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