Taxpayers Turn U.S. Farmers Into Fat Cats With Subsidies – Yahoo! Finance.
This sums it up quite nicely…
The arrangement is a good deal for everyone but taxpayers. The government pays 18 approved insurance companies to run the program, pays farmers to buy coverage and pays the bills if losses exceed predetermined limits.
Wow, government cheese for everyone except the taxpayers.
The backfill information…
A Depression-era program intended to save American farmers from ruin has grown into a 21st-century crutch enabling affluent growers and financial institutions to thrive at taxpayer expense.
Federal crop insurance encourages farmers to gamble on risky plantings in a program that has been marred by fraud and that illustrates why government spending is so difficult to control.
And the cost is increasing. The U.S. Department of Agriculture last year spent about $14 billion insuring farmers against the loss of crop or income, almost seven times more than in fiscal 2000, according to the Congressional Research Service.
A SEVEN times increase in 13 years. Houston, we have a problem!
Silly me, I thought the issue with the farm bill was only food stamps. No doubt that’s a serious and costly issue but to be “rubber stamping” the farm bill that contains an out of control crop insurance program is something our politicians should NOT be doing.
We need a version of “Government Cheese” for farmers.
