Word: congressman
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...that will continue our basic farm policies, which means it will keep funneling money to farmers and pseudo farmers through a bewildering array of loans, price supports, subsidized insurance, disaster aid and money-for-nothing handouts that arrive when times are tough--or not tough. "What a joke," grumbles Congressman Ron Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat who led a failed bipartisan reform effort in the House. "You're eligible as long as you're breathing." Actually, that's not quite true. Since the vast majority of the cash goes to five row crops--corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice--more than...
...Scottie Pippen, Chevron, Ted Turner and 1,324 recipients in bucolic New York City, that's a small price to pay. "The system isn't perfect, but politics is the art of the possible, and the system works," says agribusiness lobbyist Charlie Stenholm, a cotton farmer and former Texas Congressman who was once the committee's top Democrat...
...supply controls" that boost crop prices by preventing overproduction. Such controls range from rules requiring farmers to leave some land fallow to acreage allotments directing them as to what and how much to plant. "If you can't feed and clothe yourself, your nation's at risk," says Arkansas Congressman and rice farmer Marion Berry. "Farming is a dadgum hard life, and we need folks to keep doing...
That was the deal enshrined by the Freedom to Farm law of 1996--except the part about no more subsidies. "The regular order took over," recalled Dan Glickman, a former Kansas Congressman who was President Clinton's Agriculture Secretary. "There was a lot of hefty intellectual discussion about weaning farmers off the dole, but of course, it didn't happen." Instead, GOP leaders agreed the next farm bill would wean farmers off subsidies but only after they received seven years of guaranteed transitional payments--even when prices were high. Farmers also received more generous crop-insurance subsidies so that Congress...
...several years, our reluctance to cut farm supports has stalled the talks, kneecapping American firms ranging from Microsoft to FedEx to Anheuser-Busch, and even American farmers who rely on exports. "The problem is a vested political constituency that's absolutely committed to the status quo," says retired California Congressman Cal Dooley, a former cotton and walnut farmer who leads the Grocery Manufacturers Association. "That's the main obstacle to free trade...